Sausalito
Bearing salt on her breathy
the wind runs in soft darkness.
Sailors who had been elbow deep in
bone and blubber, fierce hunters
taking life with easy conscience,
unloaded full casks upon this shore,
poaching the sea’s cornucopia, whales -
those great Leviathans from Siberia.
Every man, mahogany-hued, a gladiator.
Stormy waters taking their secrets,
weaknesses, on the lip of a wave,
folding them, fish-lined fathoms deep
in silk evergreen closets -
mariners who watched sea unicorns bask
and respected the albatross legend.
The New World was young, no auditor
calculated the score, no-one knew
the rich oboe music of the ocean.
A cruel harpoon thrust ended life,
roiled waters, vermilion stained, spreading,
a cacophany of winged scavengers
tearing the whale’s barnacled hide.
Now, early in a cool Nay morning,
sun smiles down on clapboard houses,
yachts, stark white, pack the marina
parked neatly as waiting cars, houseboats wake.
The ancient seafaring ghosts have fled,
a last whaler sighs in gentle swells
as blithe tourists inspect her decks.
Beyond the bay, fog moves in closer.
Page(s) 6
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The