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

the tidepool

The tide pool

1/  The rain , a dark streak from a cloud

Over by Kilroot , a greasy smear .

Soon it will be raining here

On concrete already stained

With yellow , rust and ivory

2/  Behind the wall
the jelly people live

like glassy ghosts ,
they elevate and sink

in the lapping swell

of the tide pool ,

convulsing and pulsating ,
these colonies of cells ,

rising , falling in cadence ,

the soundless choir

of singing dreams

in the tide pool ,

inhaling and exhaling ,

anointed on their glossy skulls

with ashy crosses over curtains ,
furnishings

with trailing tassels

made of streaming stings ,

reflecting back an August moon

In the tide pool

A.Greg , Bangor ,  13/08/2019

storm

After the storm

Who can resist ?

The treasures that the sea throws in

After the storm on Friday last

Thick shelled mouse ears

Size of fingernails and perfect white
spiralling in and out of sight

And limpets , rounded pyramids of rock

Or starry chalices

Or covers from a mermaids breasts
or codfish brains

Rough on the outside , smooth inside

And sea glass , green and brown and clear

ground on the edge like jewels and casting
Coloured motes of light on stones

And empty winkles , round and dark

And debris strewn across the path

And seaweed hanging from a gate

The hanging door is open wide

There’s salty puddles in the hall

And shingle filling up the grate

A mackerel lying on the hearth

A.Greg , Whitehead , 11/08/2019

limpets and barnacles

On the discovery that limpets and barnacles are not remotely related except in the sense that they are both alive and live on rocks

Among the samphire and the wrack

For we are of the tribe of Ammonite

We travelled here across the sands

But pitch our tents on solid rock

Between the tides - and with our glands

We make them calcareous and strong

And proof against the world and those who’d wish us harm

Snugly we nestle in our nook

Attached by neck or stomach/foot - or what you will²

² Strength dwells in his neck,

And ⁷sorrow dances before him.

Like cattle of the rockpool , now we slowly graze

On the promised meadows of green slime

Inside the tent we have a secret spiral you will never see

Salute us - cousins of the octopus are we

 we toil among the vineyards of the damned

But we are righteous in thy sight - we have no dread

For here we dwell

²³ The folds of his flesh are joined together;

They are firm on him and cannot be moved.

The great waves crash against our tents

There is no tempest that can move us

No storm can shake our hold

⁶ One is so near another

That no air can come between them;

¹⁷ They are joined one to another,

They stick together and cannot be parted.

Hush - I am a stranger here

Or was - now in an unrelated flock

Of those like me who chose this rock

And put our foreheads down and stuck

Between the tides -

We were backpackers of the seas

Our people are the bumble bees

And butterflies and crabs and shrimps

And out-shelled things with jointed knees

We settled here and built a colony

And build our calcareous tents around

To shield and keep us from all harm

I don’t think we will move again

Why should we ? we do love this rock

And after all - its not as if we could

Our legs have now turned into nets

We catch our food -We don’t need much

And we are small and steadfast in our homes

Stuck by our foreheads with cement

Among the samphire and the wrack

 Who can open the doors of his face,

With his terrible teeth all around?

 His rows of ⁶scales are his pride,

Shut up tightly as with a seal;

¹,

Anita Greg  October , 2018

foam

the Causeway to Ballintoy

This is the oldest interface

This shining water crashing against cliff

This rock immovable against the sea

Inside the cliff , a niche

Is carved but not by human hands

A white bird crouches there , perhaps on eggs

She has a nesting look but then gets up to stretch her legs

And there are none that I can see
 so maybe she’s just resting for a while

 Spreading out their argon wings and hung

Like open books , ecstatic in the sun

The cormorants line up on the wave-swept rock

Throw back their dragon heads and breathing ozone in the air

 like glassy skittles

 of the wrack

anchored
and growing from the stone

with strung together bladder floats

and sliding , slipping , bands of gold and tawny hair

I’m leaning over , looking down

the cliff edge to the churning clash

of elements so far below

The waves are whipping up a froth

And clustered bubbles blow up in the breeze

And caught in currents , updraughts , spinning

Up past my face - the size of sugar mice

And up and up , in front of clouds

And landing down like cauliflowers

Of iridescent feathers on the grass

Anita Greg , Ballintoy , co Antrim , 24/08/2019

flints

Flints

shapely like
the bones of ancient oxen

Some no bigger than a thumb but
some more like the ball and socket
of a hip , sculpted
  lumps found
buried in their bed
 of snowy chalk

 split they look like
gelatine but they take edges
hard as shark hearts

from the void

Anita Greg , Whitehead co Antrim , 27/08/2019

sea