Alan Buckley
Missing the point
The cream-flecked greening beauty of the sea
incessant, ebbed and flowed across the sand,
rippling your toes, steadily rising. Bloody cold,
but you had a point to make, held your arm out
boldly. Now they’d see the limits of our human
agency; even a crown’s powers are only
finite, never absolute. But can you teach
a lesson that no body wants to hear?
I guess you must be well pissed off, your name
become a byword for arrogant folly,
and you a figure of fun. The roaring tide
of our avoidance is relentless, and no single hand
can halt the waters, swirling blind,
drowning the laughing land.
incessant, ebbed and flowed across the sand,
rippling your toes, steadily rising. Bloody cold,
but you had a point to make, held your arm out
boldly. Now they’d see the limits of our human
agency; even a crown’s powers are only
finite, never absolute. But can you teach
a lesson that no body wants to hear?
I guess you must be well pissed off, your name
become a byword for arrogant folly,
and you a figure of fun. The roaring tide
of our avoidance is relentless, and no single hand
can halt the waters, swirling blind,
drowning the laughing land.
Alan Buckley lives in Oxford. He was the winner of the first Oxford Literary Festival poetry slam in April 2005.
Page(s) 32
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