Above the Copelands

Above the Copelands,
The islands and environs,
A fat rope of cloud

Doubles, its loop ends
Shred down -
Oakum into tar.

Seagulls float on the sun
In brown waste off Blackhead.
The cliff path's part Cresta Run.

There are three black fins
Scything northward. "Did
You see the dolphins?"

A dozen he'd counted. " Yes
But I just caught three…
(Harvesting…and a scatter

Of gulls, like chaff, thrown up)
…Porpoises I thought". He
Would rather they were dolphins.

Later, from the top,
I watch all twelve of them;
Sinewy, snorting.A family in trade

Past the Laird they stitch a hem.
The Stinking Port's straight ahead.
Or, if you'd rather - The Sweet Gobbins.

Cold Calling

And then there is - happy disruption
And how to cope with it, this early in February?
Everything to the east is fuzzy-edged
And made from something else.

That concrete plinth - cork.
Those round boulders - bubbling lava.
No steam at the tideline,
The sea is silver paper;

Or changed - the kelp combed
And hennaed, but not like hair.
Bracken in rickles, part burnished,
Or part burnt black.

I turn to a bright " good morning"
And a figure, shoulders on fire,
Stepping out of fire -
Like an Israelite…

Of course, it's the sun,
Cold calling. Its bright stream
Touting glamour and strangenesses -
Fishy shadows. Startling light.

John Hewitt

He should have grown
Old in Marrakech -
Favoured with bold grand-
Children, the appreciation of
His peers. A melon, dates, fresh
Figs and autumn sun.

He should have due
A Soviet state pension
Besides, a yellow dacha in
Birch woods, a smoke house
Hung with fish and game.
A summer kitchen garden.

A lectureship in down-
Home Florida. Alligator-mesh
Plot and yard, salt water pond
To swim in. The flattery of college
Youth. An open invitation - "Come,
Talk to us on local radio."

Alas, The Ulster Way chose him,
The Lake Poets, Morocco bound.
Sable hats that sit in steam
(from stove not sun) A plain sonnet on
The pad. A Tampa postcard from
Some red-nosed so and so.

^

Biography

Peter Waring - born 1947 in Belfast.
Educated 'Methody' and Q.U.B.
Worked as art teacher and nursery-
Man. Inspired by the Poets' House
when it was set up at Port Muck and
had a small collection of poems
published by Lapwing Publications.
Retired recently to full time writing.
Another collection in preparation
at Lapwing.