Source
Inhale space:
here to the horizon nothing
but moor’s wide-armed
embrace of screaming contours;
the bleached hills’
wind-washed bladescape
stretched over earth’s hard ribs.
Press mossy flesh:
first drops of river
squeeze from peat.
Gaze on this sky pool,
where grass cloud
is stilled weed,
the eye pricked
by bloodied granite:
pinheads of scarlet lichen.
Possessed by wind and water,
I await rain’s letting
Oil – £550.00
Oil – SOLD
Manx Shearwater, Lundy
Did it start with rock, wind or sea,
this never-ending war of suck
and lash, scrabbling snatch,
hard-won fracture, the thunder
of plundered stone into water –
wave chafer
white crest strider
water grazer
Relentless drench assaults
cliff and headland; wave-nails,
sharpened by rock-pruning
skin-drumming wind,
undo cracks and crevices –
salt air beater
spume fretter
brine licker
Vertical dykes intrude
into granite; stones striate
in the bite of furious tides’
swelling swoop, their gouge
and scratch –
scale snatcher
seaweed stroker
mollusc frayer
Moon rises, fires water
into lunatic floods, lifts
and hurls, burns ridge
and furrow, claws back cloud
to discover star surge –
air scissor
darkness slicer
wind-rope walker
Wave after wave
of rock-wrung stone-torn
shriek blasts cliff –
swells day in, day out –
bellows squeaker
gravelled wheezer
raucous keener
All rises and falls –
rise and fall
