THE BATTLE OF MALDON

 

Was all lost at sea then

Still fighting the battle 

Fleeing from invisible Norse men

Drinking oblivion for its own sake

Downing pints of dark matter 

“All my life I’ve been riding, these ranges” sings Robbie Basho

Sinking in the black mud of the estuary

Rough hewn glossal warbling 

That hovers in the middle distance

Like a rare plover or maybe a sky-lark even

Familiar roads uneven surfaces belonging to

Nights freezing into acid dawns frost clicking un-frosting

As the sun gets out from behind vast bilious clouds 

All the lines and edges sleek well-defined skittering

Chemical hues sheeting out of blurred reflections

Patrolling the peninsular

Sleeping marble lions 

Have to escape from daily

Prison of metaphor so here

We go there it is crouching like

A wounded cat poised

To make a go at it

Supping the air giddy at the 

Overwhelming resource of the words

That everyone has missed something so obvious

It must be a trick of the light.