By: Doug Poole

City: Auckland

Country: NZ

Reclining Figures

1.#

Overnight
High tide
carved sheer faces
across the coastline
Left
skeletal trees
upright once more
Marooned,
bleached reclined figures
against the Ink-streaked
Manuka skyline
Plangent winds
sculpt dunescapes
reduce headland
blood-red clay
to sand

2 .#

Skeletons arise
from shoreline
death beds
Tales of
cut the anchor and run
run the in-going tide
Smashed Hulls
Spanish Galleons
Dutch, English traders
Riding the channel bareback

3.#

The sea bed is
cruel fate
A sunken prehistoric
Kauri forest,
haunted
Screaming lost
mariners stumble,
salt eye blind
The mighty Kaipara Bar
Harbinger of shipwreck

4.#

Low tide,
I walk this
ancient coastline
In footsteps of
Ancestors
Mariners
I feel you
I hear you
Tangata Whenua
those who lived the Kaipara
Pakeha
those who died
entering her

5.#

Now, resting
I search
Flotsam and jetsam
spindle pieces
Ovals with points
Vertebrae
And knife edges
Bleach boned
Soul cleansed


(Dedicated to the mighty Kaipara Harbour and Henry Moore)

Copyright © Doug Poole 2000

Send private comments to author: Doug@visual.co.nz


Comments:
Doug,

Your pen grows mightier daily. Bravo.

Dennis
Name: Dennis Greene
EMail:


Comments: Poignant, powerful ... perfect.

Name: RhymeMaster
EMail: rhymer01@thewritersnook.com


Comments: Great job Doug. Very moving.

Name: Ed Allen
EMail:


Comments: I've gone back several times to read this poem because the meaning is so compelling as well as well written in its narrative.
More so, when I could visualize my ancestors leaping from slave ships, and their bodies parts being washed up on some foreign shore.

Name: ZZ
EMail:


Doug-

my friend- you have shown great growth over the past year: congrats

David... downunder


Comments: My deepest thanks, I am so humbled by all your comments.
This work was 6 months in the making and took a lot of revising and reading aloud to ensure I felt the piece in my bones.
It is very much a poem that was "ripped from the soul" in the words of Larry Jaffe. Thank you all so much again,
I will endeavor to submit more works of substance. Much Love Doug.

Name: Doug Poole
EMail: Doug@visual.co.nz


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