Saturday, 12 March 2016

from Blackwater Quartet, selection 76



Open Verdict

From the Orwell Bridge the view slides east.
The boats mid-channel drift at anchor,
restricted to the tidal narrows.
From here, it is easy to confuse scale and distance.
Board game pieces of the stranded fleet
appear a credible alternative to theories of perspective.

Bridge traffic labours in the cross winds.
The windsock symbol on the sign
warns off the caravan and tower-sided lorry.
I hang like talons to a tilted world the traffic passes.

There was a reason for this,
for the pale afternoon leaning to showers.
The hawk I sculpted from the rain
persists above the baffle of cloudbank
unshaken from the heights:
a figure, toylike in the air.

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