With the Fishermen
This morning I strolled to the harbour
To watch the fishermen paint their boats,
Or mend their nets with a spinster’s patience,
Mesmerized by their unravelling.
Definitively Mediterranean;
They squat if destined to be painted,
Dress for an impressionist canvas,
Utterly at peace with their time and space.
Their boats coloured from a palette of dreams
Each it bold contrast to its neighbour
Green to yellow, red to electric blue
As sharp as the mid-day horizon.
And if they sail late, which they rarely do,
They sail with the insouciance of men
Guaranteed a cooling breeze
And an azure sea, shoaled with sardines.
For they are twice blessed; with honest lives
Wine and song, gentle consummation
And a yearning, a yearning for something,
Always just over the next horizon.
Bound
Uneasy with the night,
Bedevilled with complex miseries,
Sleep a profound enigma;
I dream of you.
Time leaks, the old house creaks,
Outside a west wind roars retribution,
As birch trees crack and splinter
And blasted owls seek shelter
I toss and turn,
Churn and dream of you.
Lost inside a shell
Of dark oblivion,
A space unlimited.
I descend down to hell and back,
Down to the farthest edge of time,
Where there is nothing else to do
But watch the stars implode,
And still I think of you.
Fog
She talked often about the fog
The ‘Pea Souper’, ‘London Particular’,
That smothered all the London Streets
With corrosive fog, a ghastly miasma.
How granddad had shuddered to his knees,
His lungs corrupted, wheezing his last breath,
How fourteen tons of Flouride did for him;
Some said twelve thousand were killed that week.
She claimed it slipped through keyholes
Leaving residues, foul sulphurous smears,
‘Look’, she said, ‘it even stained his photograph,
Handing him to us, yellow and listless.
He was riddled with purulent bronchitis
Lingered until the 5th of December.
It made our skin crawl to look at him,
His angular face, jaundiced with disease.
She talked often about the Fog,
And how she had lived through two world wars
The odd bod lodger who lived next door,
Who strangled cats, or so she claimed.
I imagined the bellowing chimneys
Of Battersea, Bankside and Kingston,
Six million chimneys belching out their load
And tried to imagine, growing old.
John Stocks is a widely published and anthologised writer from the UK. Recent credits include an appearance in the poetry anthology, Soul Feathers, alongside Maya Angelou, the English poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, Bob Dylan , Len Cohen, Rimbaud and Verlaine. This anthology was the second best selling poetry anthology in the UK in January, is raising money for cancer care, and can be ordered online from Waterstones UK. He also features in ‘This island City’, the first ever poetry anthology of poetry about Portsmouth, also available from Waterstones. In 2012 John will be launching a collaborative novel, Beer, Balls and the Belgian Mafia, inspired by three of his primary interests.
Hypertext Magazine and Studio (HMS) publishes original, brave, and striking narratives of historically marginalized, emerging, and established writers online and in print. HMS empowers Chicago-area adults by teaching writing workshops that spark curiosity, empower creative expression, and promote self-advocacy. By welcoming a diversity of voices and communities, HMS celebrates the transformative power of story and inclusion.
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