Mark Goodwin

 

Passing Through Sea-Thorn

sheets of salt    -light slice    frontal
greys land to our    backs sea    to our faces

a little    vill    age of Rinsey    & its pure
wet name behind    our minds clings to a slip

pery tilt of world    as angered January tugs
at it & us    with bur   sting sky Rinse

y at a    back of land our feet    fed across vague
at a back of a coast's    dumb mouth

as ocean shouts deep backlogs of vast    rain
trick    ling a    long thorns    a taut

fraying r    ope of coast    -path pass    es through
a purple-black blackthorn cloud    thorn-

clitt-clatt    wind shreds through sharp wood
a wren's frag    ment wrapped in brown

glimpse    Rinsey Head's sing    le howled-at
house tightening distances round its gran    ite

selfness teet    ering fast on a cl    iff-lip facing
sea's visible sizzling voices & s    pray's

seen scraping phrases & wind's    ever
uttered touches    contains deep indoors    a floor

-corner with warm    still fluff    no one has
touched    blackthorn's long inter    laced pricks

a mesh of weapon    ry ranks    of skeletal
fretting either    side of footworn hawser-width

clickt-drip clackt-drop thorn    phantoms
shudder under wind    -strings I am spine on

femurs & shins myself strung to    jolts wind
grinds my brow each boot    -clunk disconnects

me to path-pebbles and    thence to sol
id but erodable    depth a bag    of air bursts a burden

of spatters a wet    hammering holly leaves
glisten-rattle    gorse in bloom with boun    cing

golden scraps is a hill    side of dancing ram
blers clad    in gaudy yellow Gore

-Tex jackets heat    & moisture leak from joints
in my high    -tech shell    sweat wicks    up through

a finely woven mesh of sy   n the    tic fibres    Praa
Sands rushed    by ringing    froth & curling

shrouds of ocean skimming    scum-foam like
weightless bread sliding sideways    a figure

& his/her Spring    er on sand    faint & miniature
at a weather's far    end be    yond behind

this human's & dog's    minds houses    flat
white wet paper squares balanced    on an

old eroding rim bet    ween a thick depth of    sea
& heavy   height    of sky all    impossibly not

          b    lown a    way su    ggests

 

Note: Praa is pronounced as 'pray' (or perhaps 'prair'),
it should not be pronounced as 'Prare'.

 

Copyright © 2008, Mark Goodwin.

Mark Goodwin lives in Leicestershire. His first collection, Else, appeared in 2008 from Shearsman Books.