Dead mens fingers

Alcyonium digitatum - Dead mens fingers

we are lurking under pier piles

we grow fuzzed

our palms upraised

our fingers stretch

we reach toward the stars

we know

which one of them is ours

we grow

towards it - magnetised like iron

filings out to Alcyone

the brightest of the Pleiades

diving into the wreck

Anita Greg 20/03/019
Diving into the wreck
( after original poem by Adrienne Rich )

Falling backwards - that’s the way

Divers go into the water

Head first - backwards - hit the waves

Passing through the widening circles

All the kit you ever owned

Will not save you now from drowning

Sinking down and down and down

Lead weights wrapped around your ankles

Deeper than the deepest corals

Down here - in among the wrecks

Deeper than the safety zone

As the little bubbles form

In the arteries and veins

Here the wooden ribs of ships

Like the ribcages of whales

Pulleys , spars and splintered masts

Iron rivets , cables rusting

Galleys , cargo , shredded sails ,

And here are bones - but not of sailors

Captains , cabin boys or whalers

These are bones of gamblers , crooks

Corner boys and shady dealers

Some you know - you knew them from

Some other time - you can’t remember

Here they are with gaping teeth

Seaweed where the tongue should be

Singing songs from memory

A chest has bursted open here

Spilling prayers and lies and poems

And Jellyfish come sailing by

Angels of the salty bones

This was once a violin

Here it’s weighted down with stones

Down here we are not alone

We’re with the nameless in the currents

Filter feeders - sea-cucumbers
We are our own ecosystem - rich

In rare metals , iron - we are become

Oasis in an arid zone - a palace and a desert throne -

A kingdom of our various own -

Oh ! - watch your step -
 a giant clam

May seize your leg and then your hand . It’s just a reflex but

It’s death to you by drowning . Fanning worms - like flowers

Splay out their fronds and catch the particles that float

Like tiny thoughts , down from the surface boat

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the island

The island

‘the clear expression of mixed feelings.’

Auden

Behind my ribs I carry Bim

Between my eyes is Bathsheba

Each kidney is a hurricane

And in my palms are palms

The lines are maps of parishes

And every nail a door

I slowly walk the path around my hand
My arms reach out to nothing there

This isle of cruelty and flowers

and fingers spread like starfish on the sand   

  Anita Greg 04/05/2019  

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the estuary

 ... by the  estuary

   the estuary today is very low

it's trickling through soft and muddy shelves .

Black headed gulls and one black hooded crow

are making footprints while they're turning over shells ,

   The heaps of seaweed glisten in the sun .

A rising bubble glints and then subsides .

Theres a supermarket trolley and the salty sweet perfume

of something decomposing slowly in the tides .

    The broken concrete ledge is getting warmer now

and all around the driftwoods lying , bleaching in the sun

and shells of crabs and random plastic things

that have gathered there , the last time that there was a flood

   A gull takes off and flies a bit and then it lands

Quite near the same place that it was before

Another one comes gliding in and whirls around and then takes off again

And then , above and passing by , a purple Flybe plane

   The wind is blowing softly from the sea .

 in the distance , the Black Mountain . In between

The yellow cranes and oil rigs being cleaned

And in front of them , the elder bushes laden down with creamy flowers

Some people want to fly away , but why ?

I really like it here - is this not bliss ?

Anita Greg 17/06/2019

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biography

Yesterday I watched a butterfly

Warming up its opened wings

Veined and furry if you look up close

In powdery umber colouring

On the steps of aggregate 

That lead up to the bridge

 Over the dual carriageway
    I watched it sun itself and then
     it folded up its wings and flew away

Biography

  Everything I write that starts with“I”

  And is about myself just always seems to be a lie

  It’s not intentional - it’s just is the way it is .

 There is a kind of butterfly

Called Zaretis Itys

That looks just like a fallen leaf .

 From Amazonia and it must

 Have broken out of the coccon it made

 Itself , when it was not itself at all

Anita Greg 17/06/2019

swans

Swans

Why swans ? like snowy barges on the lake
- or paper boats of whiteness , when the natural is beige
or tawny for protection
It is the adults that are white - they do not care -

It is no effort for them - they swim in mirey slime
then shake it off
and rise like waterlillies every time

But they are not the birds I love
I love the diving birds - the cormorants , black guillemots

If that is what they are , reptillians ,

That go in headfirst , out of sight ,
and search in muddy currents without light

And turn up soaked and have to dry their wings

A.G  07/05/2019

believe

Believe

I believe the world is beautiful - that ants are as beautiful as roses and that fungi are the most beautiful of all

I believe in tides and salty oceans , in jellyfish and waves the sun shines through and traced with foam and weed

I believe in darkness where the cells divide and grow in shapes and patterns already written somewhere in a book

A.G  07/05/2019