Wye water: afloat, the slow saddening music
Of splendour breathes sweet obeisance and blooms.
I frame the night-river—the burnished cord—not wanting the soundtrack at all.
Those finishing salmon, their jackets of tin dust in suspense,
Dab at the water-lamps, noble and sick. They wait—
As singly as their queuing teeth—drink free, swallow marbles: the subtle hold of life.
They are the poets of a ballast-light, loading
Their spring-eyed joy on tomorrow. And one, then another,
Another capsizes—stormless—drifts along the heavenward calendar.
*
Some flat in Oxford: dabbing weed, the high saddening music of impulse,
Seeds the course of powder-stuffed soloists mid-drain of their thoughts’ tin cry.
I frame the party—friends fucking everywhere—not wanting the soundtrack at all.
Their brows hang on sun-lines, frail, in suspense—
Each summer more severe in their threads—half-settled over pint cans;
Their pop-tab's blank abyss and, singly, they swallow marbles: the naked hold of life.
They are the poets of taken down mirrors, de-silvering;
Of coat buttons that break apart as—static—they sprint from creation’s groan without;
Of digging rare earth till they wake stood in graves: squares on the heavenward calendar.
__________
Andrew Mears is a writer and musician based in Bristol. Across disciplines, his work has appeared in PN Review, Modern Art Oxford and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, among others.