I
The ship is lost, a minor nothing

Tossed on tempest harassed seas________________BOOM!

BOOM!______BOOM!______thunder brays.
The master of creation sprays the deck with spume and wrack;

Answers with a galeforce screech

And lightning blaze astreak a brindled sky.
Our wretched hearts echo

                                                           boom-boom-boom

Blind against the windblown night,
A stone’s throw away

From land that waits and glowers

                                                           fool’s gold fool’s gold
		     The ma

Of sound

Fills cracks in the bowl with gold.
Jewels shiver the ground:

Tormaline, malachite and lapis lazuli,

Sparks upon Mata Hari’s
Immensely prolific breast, lungs, chest.

The heft of her voice rings bells	   clarion   cornelian   carillon
                                                           glimmer and echo
II
How is it that the bells don’t show

Where the heart lies			   heart lies

Where mica chips and flakes.
The bells ring				           slagheap

The bells ring				           brassbucket

                                                           wellwater
Through the grain, the grass blows, the stone speaks. I nod

To shades of green and grey and inbetween the voices

Twine like bells, like the meadow, bells between
III
Allow the world to sink, the sun to cease, the moon to fold

In half, his poor stained face turned away from us
				        I claw

My way through the territory of inner breaks, the territory of wind

Adjusted windmills turning in the galeforce roar of winds

Blown from the fat full cheeks of giants bent on giving sail to

		skiffs

				        O

			        	what a lovely world is born

				        a sprout upon this lake of sound, this wave

				        of time and scrape

				        this minute blinking of an eye

				        ai-yai-yai
				        Mine blinks

Back tears, a smile upon my ears. No harm done! The scrape

Does not escape the vision. The stone upon my finger

Waits to break the news. It’s good. The empty tin is full
IV
The deck of the ship keeling,

Voices bellow from below

The same story every time			          the story of the world is Dreck
The tragic track, the murdered margin, the border crossing,

The foldout coast, the squiggle, the prayer,

The fumble united in the field
						                          That pitch

A note too difficult to identify

Moving through to bliss			                  white hot bobbins, flowerheads,
The spineless manner of the proposition

From some other story . . .			          The flag is

						                          red white and blue

						                          The flag is red

						                          black and gold

						                          The flag is yellow

						                          green and red

						                          The blood
V
Ships pass in the night,

Fragments of a cliché

Caught in their wake.
The sky resounds

To a fine saxophone,

A soft slow snog
		       Come hither, play your tongue

Across the reed, crease me,

Crack me open like a seedpod.
The ship sails on.

The ship leaves

Slip stream
					                  in its wake