Poems written by Nicholas Rowe, from the small island of Guernsey in the Atlantic Ocean.
Far from the fumes, our
polluted illusion in
clear resolution.
~
A distant hum outlines the
silence. The falling sea settles in
oily currents by the rocks.
~
A large gull slowly flaps above the
channel, pitches, meets its reflection, splashing
sofly, drifting backward on the tide.
~
A caterpillar crawls in
the hot white sand. A magical bird
flutters in shimmering light.
~
Black smoke joins a brown
band staining the horizon,
car engines straining.
Dear readers,
I have added a new ‘Selected Poems’ area to the site menu.
While the main menus (under 2018 and 2019) continue to contain all poems and are chronological, the idea of this new menu is to provide a curated selection in a customised order.
If I one day publish a book, I imagine it would include a similar exercise of selecting and ordering those to include, and I might be tempted to end with an ‘off-cuts’ section, including many of the rest.
I might (probably quite fairly) be accused of not being sufficiently selective in the ‘Selected Poems’ menu area, or missing out ones you think I should have included. Do let me know in comments if you have any thoughts on whether this new menu works for you, or on what you would leave out or add in.
Thank you,
Nick 😊
Sparkling white sunlight
on wavelets in the cove, cooled
by early spring sea.
~
Air warms in sunlit patches
sheltered from the salty breeze, coloured
by the first flowers of spring.
~
The colourful warm,
intoxicating flood of
summer on the way.
I remember, at the age of four,
a violent storm that blew outside
like nothing else upon this earth –
when I was taken near high tide
to feel that force of Nature’s birth.
Within the shelter of the land
the trees would sway and whip and sigh,
below the dark and dreary sky.
Before the beach a bank stood high,
with us behind, within its lee;
we climbed to face the deafening roar
and fought to stand upon the shore,
and saw the savage sea.
~
Far offshore great mountains boomed,
crashing in heaping boiling whites,
spray streaks pulling through the air –
bright in the green and purple light.
The salty blast blew through my hair,
blew through my clothes like paper, soaking
my face, my eyes, and stinging my nose.
I shuddered, cold from scalp to toes,
in awe as Nature’s violence rose.
~
And here I am in silent air,
nothing moving in this room,
trapped in a timeless, heavy gloom.
~
But I remember being there,
and once again I long to be
a shaking figure fixed before
a mighty storm upon the sea
with huge waves crashing on the shore.
~
And I will see that storm arrive,
my feelings swelling with its rise,
a fire burning in my eyes,
insignificant beneath tremendous skies,
the Atlantic blast beating through me,
a smile behind my wild eyed stare,
knowing that I should be there –
a part of Nature, with Nature in me,
alive in that moment, with the soul of the sea.
Prickly gorses brown
and grey – flowering yellow
by the blue green sea.
~
And in between an earthy
path that dips and weaves with stones and shells,
heading through my memory.
~
Close, far, elusive
as a star, sublime. Other
place and place in time.
Winter leaves a land
of still anticipation,
bathed in orange light.
~
Biscuits, coffee, nestled in
his ship – a cutter perched on rusty
barrels, small before the sun.
~
A nearby nest of lanes – the garden
done, she heads to yellow flames, as coldness comes,
and cuts, and the colours merge to grey.
~
And as they sink within the
night, I think of them, the single house,
the trees and whispering sea.
~
When I return, the
smiles will be warm, and I will
find a part of me.
