Ocean
Hommage to James "Mick" Magennis VC
At the performance of Merce Cunningham’s Ocean
In the Waterfront Hall the coral-coloured dancers
Drenched my head with silence and whale messages
And made me feel like a frogman on dry land.
There was room for only one midget submarine
In the roof space where my mind had floated, and where
Swimming from the Falls Road Baths to Singapore
Mick Magennis emerged in his frogman’s suit,
Oxygen leaking in tell-tale bubbles up to heaven,
His expression unfathomable behind the visor
But his modest thumbs-up confirming that, yes,
He had stuck limpet mines on the cruiser Takao.
Alongside dog-paddling, ballet-dancing polar bears,
Penguins like torpedoes, dolphins in twos and threes,
Sea otters, seals, Mick was formation-swimming and
At home in the ocean’s cupola above my head.
Page(s) 15
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