Poem 511

A pervasive sense of displacement and not belonging in both the place you’ve come to and the place you’ve come from …

( I like how the narrator’s perspective changes to that of the seal … I remember a seal on the winter beach at Kaikōura so always see that part of the poem as taking place there … )

Émigré

How am I meant to get on in this place
where sparrows drop stunned
         by the hand of the clock
                                                             I come from a town
south of here
                             of blue brick and picture theatres
cold light off the sea
                                    my parents have a black dog
they walk miles to let him bark at a seal
then home again
                                   I don't mean I'm a simple man
I played all the records as a kid
wanted lightning across my face
                                                                   I had pets
that died or I left (the black dog)
I broke into a house there and know the weird
      ellipsoid feeling of squeezing
      your hand through the magnetic shield
      of someone else's things

how am I meant to get on here
                                                                 where the sea is broken
full of paint
                        my work is flicking rubber bands
at wall charts
                            when the brick is wet
all the stone of the city with rain
                                                                  and I yawn
      I expect to see two figures
      and a third smaller at a safe distance
      barking