Poem 70

Another one from Smalls … I did a little design on most pages … this poem had an undulating line between verses two and three representing the sea because the ‘garden’ is an octopus’s garden where the pilot finds himself after a mishap (or is it in fact a snapshot of depression?) …

… shades of full fathom five from The Tempest, Phlebas the Phoenician from The Wasteland, a scene from Lord Of The Flies and while we’re at it, Odysseus in the wreck in my own Cult (Poem 10) … 

( I like the floating melancholy of this … the sense of saudade and dare I say it beauty … )

Full Fathom

Within the muffled garden
wormy coral branches
I saw where the pilot was sitting
so awkwardly

his thumbs were turned to the westward
stubby antenna tuning to the sea
and a distant shadow crept on him
slowly

halfway over the water and halfway still to go
drowsing in the garden
no engine no instruments
no controls