Human poetry off Gower
The wind is unravelling itself
to the elephant seals’ counterpoint
their almost-chant is a slither-wash
to these glistens the sands of Gower glistral
the pent cliffs of the shining tongue
where the word is suffocated in the embers
of the sunset
and the stroking moonlight
deftly outlines the humps and eggs
where it swells to the waves’ music this poetry
in its silverings this is the seas root, the sea gorse washing cleansed itself.
The seals’ benediction is almost the cry of the baby.
It is supplanting clamberingly tiny flippers across the wave worn littoral
where cockles striate granite and the lisping song staccato clatter
of piled bivalves their trouvailles assembled aboriginal indigines
here the human should submerge in wonder the poetry complete
yet the moral points, that entropic surge disassembles
coast and path and breakwater. Aproned clustering cockles
gathering girls in dusk, waiting for the last train.
Colin Honnor: Widely published poet in numerous magazines in print and online, including: Poetry and Audience, 21 Years of Poetry and Audience Anthology, Agenda, Outposts, The Rialto, Fire, Smoke, Orbis, Ore, Iron, Lines Review, Envoi, Staple, Sepia, Hybrid, Poetry Nottingham, Tops, Pennine Platform, Ammonite, Terrible Work, Tandem, Odyssey, Headlock, The Swansea Review, Iota, The People’s Poetry, Outposts, 4×3 ,Arabesques International Review, The Dublin Quarterly, Braquemard, Poetry Manchester, Poetry Quarterly, Masques, Great Works, Aireings, The Wolf, Various Artists, The Poetry Business Anthology and many others. Collections, mostly from small presses and private presses include From Underground (Mirabilis 1986); Dante; Cavafy; The Somme; (Yew Tree Press). English Poetry is forthcoming from the University Press of America. A former editor of Poetry and Audience, he runs a fine arts press in the Cotswolds.