Lament for an Illegal Immigrant
No moon, but fishermen
are used to that and the sea’s chanting,
the descant of the nets. The decks
silvered with sea verses,
the minims and trebles of fish
hushed into songbooks of ice.
Something didn’t sing, humped
in the net, thudding onto the deck.
Its ears heard no notes, its eyes blind
to the men standing by, its throat
choked with words
that no one would hear.
They let the sly octopus
sidle to the ship’s side, forgot to stop
the arch and leap of bream.
The sea moaned, the fish
slipped out of tune, the kittiwakes
hurled screeches like broken strings.
The men unfroze, thumped
what didn’t sing, what was lost for words,
over the hissing deck. Tipped that which
had no hope, had never had a hope,
back to the sea. No
word, no hymn, no prayer.
But the wrack in the nets wept. The sea
beat its fists on the boat. And the wind got up
and howled till dawn.
The Nuns’ Araucaria
Not at all the kind of tree you’d expect to find
In a monastery garden. It squears above the wall
Its giant fingers horning the heavens, effing
Up at the skies. And the nuns who moved in have
Left it there, yet chopped down the stammering mimosa,
The cherry whose blossom danced a swan lake
Over the boughs, the sacred yew by the gate with its
Scarlet berries we plucked and sucked and spat at
The monastery well. But a monkey puzzle?
Was it an abbot who had planted it, a symbol
Of life’s labyrinth or of evil’s intricacies? Did he intend it
To stand as a speechless sermon long after he’d died?
Is it a warning of purgatory’s trials or a statement
Of the life we are confusedly living, snared, squittering
In Fate’s mesh, while the Dark Hunter, unmoved,
Looks on? Or does it symbolize nothing
At all, have no significance, is just a prelate’s whim,
A caprice to slip between the lines of the Rule?
From my window at night that tree cavorts
With the stars, tracing the Game of the Goose
Over the mooning sky. Soundless as shadows nuns
Slide under its boughs – who’s to tell if it grabs at their veils
Or pricks them on their silent way? Or do they –
For some penance or for a sly joy – clamber
Into its bristly branches, struggle out of their
Caught and cumbersome habits, and wriggle,
Naked and lithe as monkeys, up to the winking stars?
poems from Caduceus (Hedgehog Poetry Press september 2023)
Two poems published in Syncopation Literary Journal July 2023
https://syncopationliteraryjournal.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/g.-griffin-poems-proof.pdf