1 poem
The Roaring Globe - for A.O.
I came to you late.
Up to my neck in water your
unexpected words wrapping a torc of
river-reeds nestling on my collarbone lapping
this then that earlobe. Plash. Plash.
The tidemarks mark time my
blue portable radio juicing your
exact amounts precisely around midnight a
flowing chime of tellings banking shocks of silt.
Pockets of space filled. Fulfilled. Emptied. Arrested.
Exhausted. Revived. Run ragged. Survived.
Transience falling into absence.
Seven rocking oceans make our globe a
roaring thing in space feeding all the crawling
spider veins of waterways beloved. My bath sulked to
lukewarm as you withdrew into the poltergeist night of
intangible locations. They cannot be reached when the
flood of green thoughts bleed bluish hues
sliding down porcelain tiles. Keening echoes
bounce from guising shapes. Brewing shadows shell
meniscus skin with fish things. Cannibal myths. Light shows.
Animal undergrowth. Plunderings. Puncture of stock-still heart
startle. I pull the rubber plug with wonder if the water
will turn turtle under your withershins spell.
Geraldine Monk’s poetry was first published in the 1970’s. Her major collections include Escafeld Hangings, West House Books 2005 and Interregnum, Creation Books 1995. Her Selected Poems was published by Salt Publishing. Her latest book They Who Saw the Deep was published in 2016 in the United States by Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions. She is an affiliated poet to The Centre for Poetry and Poetics, University of Sheffield.