SLIPPER
When I was very young
onto school,
a slick of water curled
under a behemoth, silver poplar tree ...
there, white underbacks
of leaves waved in showy pride the
dead underbellies of bass ...
as tall boys,
big with rakish, probing, anthracite eyes,
stooped in the creek
their red, exposed flesh
colour of school brick.
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HELLULAND
We built bottlecaps off
ship's sides
(soft, cedar bough),
Viking masts
shining thru imagined
Norse seas.
Sporting logs,
(sweet, cedar-wood shavings)
piercing beer hats/silver foil,
grey wraps & burlap,
Atlantic capes,
our twin peaks soared.
New Found Land
(a child's faery shrimp logistics
aide-de-camp simplistics)
marvelled tale
of warm, butter moon
with outpourings around
penknife's blade.
To tame Sutton Hoo,
(I am very close to myself tonight)
bronze copper, cruising wintery water,
Anse aux Meadows,
occasional dirt shack
skraelings,
jagged blade & arrow
backward into time
for Helluland,
yet marooned in the Land
God gave Cain.
[52]
TRINKETS
My mind a buzz saw,
wood chips in decapitated thought
soil chilblained hands
II
Cleansing wood,
the keen smell of sawdust
--good, raw earth drenching
the nostril, clean odour
of nature like my brain,
a broomstick sweeping
the coffee pot speaking ...
bubbles massed in steam
inchoate in their pensive rivulets.
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