Poem 375

This is about the gap between the south seas dream and the reality … the evanescent bubble popped almost as soon as it was blown, Cook himself didn’t survive it … we live in the ruins of that quest for freedom in the sun …

( Disappointment could be the name of an island or a ship … sexually/sensory deprived sailors hallucinate dusky maidens and find only seals … I like the two hundred year cross fade from exotic birdsong to the impenetrable parrotlike racing commentators who provided a backdrop to my childhood … )

Cook’s Last Voyage

I have a tale of broken luck
  towed under the water
I was a miracle when I was young
leaving an island
on a green tide
                               stand to
in Disappointment
                                      sailors knot together
the voices of women
out of blowholes
                                  see sealing beaches
as dressed in sleek hair

strange birds shouting race results
across encoralled lagoons
resolve into
radios
             the grey Sunday lunchtime
             of an interminable June