THE MECHANICS OF A SEASCAPE

For sepia Turner and Empires of fading Fighting Temeraires

Floating just

Tugged out of gold leaf frames on yellowing Edwardian wallpaper

For a generation who hoped against hope she would never sink

Black coal smoke

An obscenity for John Constable

I don’t want to live there 
Black and sooty is the night

But neither does the daylight sits quite right

It seems I’m swaying so on my last legs

And I have gulped it all down to the very last dregs

The bitter dregs they read me no future

.

The twisted synapse holds no memorandum

That explains the twisted geometry of DNA

Or the twisted geodesics of the universe

Or the soaking mechanics of the Theatre of Memory

Or the grating chemistry of these last thoughts on it all

Nor does it explain the living sublime twisted scale of it all

Step back

Step back

They read me no future

The twisted synapse holds no memorandum

Blink

I am gone 



Dead

The image "Haven Harbour III" and text“The Mechanics of the Sea” © David F. Brandon, 2016