60 Degrees North

Oarsmen heave

nets of mackerel

from cast-iron waves;

half-booted and silent,

they have no need to tell stories,

ask dus du mind?

how after creation God gathered

leftover shards, pressed them together

to make the hilt of a sword.

Women rule the shore,

croon grounded wool and songs

scented with the whisky of a peat fire,

watch the sliver of land

between water and cloud,

lightning rod of the far edge; 

where men pull and point like compasses,

breathe in the charge of sea,  

think nothing of rocks.

tk/August 2014 

Delicious atmospheric read by R.A.D. Stainforth...

*Dark Harbor, 1943 by N. C. Wyeth

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Atlantic Waves

(Thanks to R.A.D. Stainforth ... with a small contribution from Amy the cat ...)


In the space between the crash

and pull of this wave,

I give you a landlocked heart,

chest deep, tumbled

incandescent as sea glass.

Turn it over,

examine it

in the palm of your hand.

See how important it is,

how far it traveled.

Press it

to your lips,

feel the soft-spoken stone

whisper bottle green

in your listening mouth.

Let it dissolve whole,

release the saved-up thirst,

the delicate, jellied passion.

All you hear is the sea.

Nothing else matters.

tk/ March 2013

Meal Beach, Burra Isles, Shetland by Robin Gosnall 

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Pearl

R.A.D. Stainforth in his black and white world...and so on...

Waves come
out of nowhere,

swirl before

I can steady myself.

You pick me up,

hurl me hard,

somewhere far,

deep as Shetland,

where I land

naked on a beach,

a clam on the sand,

heady with the scent

of seashells, swallowed

in chowder come.

tk/ August 2012

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image by Francesca Woodman