Trevor Landers

gangway #33/34 – Writers Abroad

Eastbourne Songs

© 2004 by Trevor Landers and gangan.com

 

1. Right there, at Pencarrow Head, alone

Dawn sprung
     the waves washed o'er
   the sunblest blood
    hastily, receding in
       the tides of your eyes
    those eyes, irises of misshapen moons
        limp in your exsanguinated pool
           right there, at Pencarrow Head, alone

2. Spume over the road at Point Howard

  The waves are fury
      white-tipped and malevolent
          surging landward
  the mist of breakers
dance like tortured wraiths
    spilling across bitumen
        by the hairpin bend at Point Howard
  the sea lashing: dominatrix-like
the rain falls and falls like sadness,
and the whole roads rises
for a taste of cleanliness,
   to be washed, cleansed in the squalls.

3. Drinking Yaqona at Parnell Street.

On the mat
     at Raymond and Viavia's house
   the men sit crosslegged, reverent
       drinking yaqona
          and telling stories
      supping from the well
       sitting around the tanoa like prophets
     silently praying with every sip.

4. poem from pencarrow head today

suddenly, the silhouette of  gorsed hillsides
    look foreign and primitive
  as if I was a lost child climbing out of the mist
    the land had an incomprehensive language
   & my explorer eyes saw new and distant shapes.

    it is good to be alone with your thoughts
  in the midwinter sun after lunch
on the potholed road to Baring Head
   the track like a seam along the rim of this archipelago
       between nature and the urban
     & from the chilly bluff, a black comorant flying overhead
        heading south, heading onward, leads me home.

 

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