Sonnet

The vast pumpkin-coach sprays ochre dust
On the finely-etched grain: how many brassy-gleaming
Coins flung to clatter amongst the crowds’ gurgling
Clishmaclaver, how many phosphorescent
Torques hung…? No will’s as strong
As a cloud in which a voice mumbles, engulfing
Its audience with an adolescent strum, or
Better yet (hoarsely now) the pyx-bound diarchy
Propped upon a burnished palm! Yet over the bristling
Ice-chafed land the foghorns disperse, eventually running out
Of twine; the cliffs lean and shift like pale passengers
Squashed against the pane; the sea shirrs
Against itself, hissing, unfurled, of its irreversible wane…
Standing here, I count myself, and count myself again.


Arrival
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