ISSN 1758-6488
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Two poems Poetry |
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Breakfast at The Fisherman's Mission
for Paul Farley and Jacob Polley
And monthly come the poets,
darkly murmuring of ampersands
and the slights of malignant anthologists.
Their shades are impenetrable.
The glare of the spring tide river
is as nothing to them.
Give us they demand cholesterol and grief;
the whole shebang of western culture
congealing in the yellow-orange vortex
of that egg yolk and those beans.
We claim as ours this underworld
whose steam-clad windows intercede
between the cruel sun and us,
as our conscience seeks itself between
the night’s absences
and the morning’s brilliant fret.
We are weary, and we come to you for rest.
Watch them go. Watch them glance across their shoulders
envying our uniforms and lives.
Watch them struggle up the hill of self,
each yearning for that moment
when they'll reach the top
too breathless to pronounce.
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