SENTINEL POETRY #26 Online Magazine Monthly, January 2005 |
BEN BARTON Now I
understand Death (The Seagull) More
a Marlowe morn than Chekhov While the mist is hanging
low. not far shy of padded bed My legs are stiffened The clouds are red. Refreshing walk No need to call or to talk my breath, a cloud Fingers numb a mind so proud and people glum The beauty of an English
dawn. The gulls fly over yelling and vocal This scene of urban nature the flock; it swells forcing to compel they yell and fly through air One by one they swoop an arc of flight From tree to roof top beading eyes that glisten seem so human in the breeze In the morning haze the day is cold the sky ablaze. The end is near and here a death bed the sky is red. I walk and pass and rub My hands together cold blood and purpose is stopped Charges from the corner The spectre; of a bus The pneumatic brakes cry
hissing the doors fly open Battering and mashing The gull Now still but a leg still twitching Guts and blood – a palette of
gore Seeping in concrete and licking the curb It whines in the mist This morning has been kissed With death. And now the flock is left Bereft; of a life The death and pain in the
morning And the passing of
God’s creature Is ignored The people worship apathy They refute the obvious… They are bored. And tonight There will be one less to fly
over This; a famous town as the leaves fall limp
around the white cliffs of Dover. And natures blood that
morning bled The chilly air. The clouds are red. |