Sunday 23 March 2014

One true thing about islands












Can’t escape the ocean on an island
its daylong skyblue lovesong; serenades
trailed all night over the tired beachfront;
the nagging tales of princes and mermaids

palled now, tattered like fingers of seaweed
washed up dark in lagoons of foreboding,
in rockpools where earth and water meet
under a plastic, pleated dome of batwings.

How many lives lie wrecked on its soft bed
drawn headlong in stunning meteor falls?
beneath its smiley faced top sheets, what debts
are allowed to slowlapse beyond recall?

Can’t escape the oceans, the sounds at hand;
each man crumbles, each man is an island.













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