The Creature by the Sea
I saw a wonderous creature lay
a pebble on a sounding shore —
his voice flung wild in pain and joy,
as from his flesh the stone slipped free,
the mucus streaked with crimson threads,
he quickly bent and wiped away.
I saw the glitters flood his eyes,
as he stood and gazed upon the sea;
he turned his shining face on me,
then all my sorrows swam to him
and he ate them with his beard-hung teeth.
Then gathering up his staff and line,
so cautious of his ruined feet,
he crept among the rocks and shells,
while feathered bones twitched on his spine.
My heart cried out to go to him,
yet I turned and fled back up the shore,
in terror of this ancient one,
who potent as the timeless waves
and riven by such pain and grief,
still sacrificed his life and days,
to lay the pebbles by the sea.
List of poems – click / tap to toggle
- A Plate of Holes
- Amber
- An Old Woman Weeds a Grave
- Auntie
- Bees
- Birds of Paradise
- Bon Voyage
- Cairo
- Curve and Swoop
- Duskfall
- Fiddler'
- First Love
- Ghostwood
- Giuseppe
- Grandpa'
- Jessica
- Lay my Corpse
- Milf
- Miss Johnson
- On Hearing that the Bees are Dying Out
- Room of Red
- Rosa
- The 16A
- The Body
- The Carpenter’s House
- The Child
- The Creature by the Sea
- The Dinner Guest
- The Fish
- The Ghisi Miniatures
- The Gorgon’s Palace
- The Iron House
- The Nails
- The Old Mirror
- The Old Train
- The Other Side
- The Piano Tuner
- The Shadow Garden
- The Spinner
- The Thorn Tree
- The Uncles
Milf
The dead
are making babies still
fucking in porno clips
on the web. That’s my mummy
opening her legs
for that hairy
man. Was I conceived just then, is that bearded
bloke my da, who hugs her
close and gentle in the year
that she was beaten for
an hour, and died in the back room
of her local pub?
I watch her
do it all again — I’m sure
she likes him, her smile’s so real, so’s
the way she comes. Does
she sense we’re all around, unseen
and watching
over her, and maybe even guess
I’m out here too, staring
at the pearly gates
that I came through?
Before
I’m older than her twenty nine
I want to do a film of Jimmy
fucking me, and leave
it near her in the web’s forever now. You’ll find us
listed under hairy milfs, perhaps
with offspring still to come, all fruit
upon an endless vine.
But I’m glad
I can download my mum, know
the fierce embraces
that she gives, proud to have her here
in my own room, the way
she once welcomed me
into her salty womb, and kept me safe, a mad life
bouncing in its padded cell, while her red
heart roared up above, then broke
like a wave of the sea.
List of poems – click / tap to toggle
- A Plate of Holes
- Amber
- An Old Woman Weeds a Grave
- Auntie
- Bees
- Birds of Paradise
- Bon Voyage
- Cairo
- Curve and Swoop
- Duskfall
- Fiddler'
- First Love
- Ghostwood
- Giuseppe
- Grandpa'
- Jessica
- Lay my Corpse
- Milf
- Miss Johnson
- On Hearing that the Bees are Dying Out
- Room of Red
- Rosa
- The 16A
- The Body
- The Carpenter’s House
- The Child
- The Creature by the Sea
- The Dinner Guest
- The Fish
- The Ghisi Miniatures
- The Gorgon’s Palace
- The Iron House
- The Nails
- The Old Mirror
- The Old Train
- The Other Side
- The Piano Tuner
- The Shadow Garden
- The Spinner
- The Thorn Tree
- The Uncles