Peter J King
HIGH SEA DRIFT
1
sal ammoniac
flaring
coughs soft
shuffling by interways
sniffs and is unconquered
encumbered by feelings of
umber, burnt sienna
two halves
unpalatable though it flew
2
spraying sea under
drowned this timber, deep
rough and guttural;
a desire to find
reference
in the ultramarine
undulate flares and something
of thunder
a white-winged desolate
3
motionless
hanging several feet
a burning white flare
described and night
falling unobserved
sleepers beneath
waving and green-scummed
fronds
feathered wide-spanned sang
light sang damnation
and an ill-omened ending
during last
or endured frost and
perhaps uncertainty
broached
separated
4
hiatus
a hairy one seized
large
an expanse of void
and tried not to speak
foals swam
flared nostrils
or strength of enduring timber
5
waltz
sea-dance flowing
sing slow now
sing salt, full
in burning
left white panned drifts
sleeping sour
ON THE CRITICAL LINE
easy to give in
slump down
invite lumbago in the face
of horrors
easy to believe
in impotence
and barrenness tombs
filled and
out of our control
it’s true
the tide comes in
the only difference spring or neap
our chairs are swept away
as we gesticulate
yell imprecations
which have no effect
easy to give in
fall off
to drown in shallow foam
face down and blinded
easy to believe
that ribbon weed
and mermaid’s purse weigh
more than we do
in the world’s regard
but though we’re little
more than nothings
though we have no heft
float rudderless
alone
we are not voids
we are not points with no
extension only place we are
non-trivial zeroes
Copyright © Peter J King 2017
Peter J King was active on the London poetry scene in the 1970s, running Tapocketa Press and co-founding
words worth magazine with Alaric Sumner. In 1980 he took up philosophy, and is currently lecturer in philosophy at Pembroke College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. His latest poetry collections are Adding Colours to the Chameleon (Wisdom’s Bottom Press 2016) and All What Larkin (due 2017, Albion Beatnik Press).
words worth magazine with Alaric Sumner. In 1980 he took up philosophy, and is currently lecturer in philosophy at Pembroke College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. His latest poetry collections are Adding Colours to the Chameleon (Wisdom’s Bottom Press 2016) and All What Larkin (due 2017, Albion Beatnik Press).