poem

Matthew Caley: commended The Bluff

Apparently, the lights are in scatterfall above the bluff,
its incline serrated by firs
into dark-green saw teeth,
thence a slither of wortleberry and scree to where

the bay bulges into the ocean like a breathalysing balloon,
dotted by a single dhow or skiff
-from here it’s not quite clear- which is where our guts go airborne.
Barely tethered to the wild, green globe itself

the skiff is held by only a fraying lily-rope
to a spar of shingle –as if either might drift off–where, under a wind-tugged tarp
The Great Master is trying to map

the unmappable auroras. He must depend, fences not being enough,
on these few illegible scribbles holding off
the scatterfall of evening. And therein lies the bluff.

 

 

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