Thursday, 2 May 2013

Salters Ghost



Salters   Ghost

There are things that  remember
Mirror  shows a strangler
ivory shot box cries Elephant
chalk foot  walk  where a  neat figure woman this side of twenty   says "  I  have just been for a swim" then disappears
Peppers  ghost
Salters  ghost
nothing to see 
cotton and wool 
blue and anchor
bell peal
nice body

Is  this a  badger  game?
brock corner  of fatter mates  hard  giggling on front and back  cameras
she is too old for you

She has my mothers  hair 
my grandmothers  hair
like steam and sink  passing over Einstein's Swiss  magnet and  axis wire
just going for a swim 
and the sea  turns
what a lot of chaos

Bubble  
August  over and again,  again and over
take her time -  this side of twenty 
returning carriage
Tommy Flanders   unburied
plots of dangerous Agatha
chuff railway posters
a shop that sells one thing for sixpences
brittle  tea and white laced buns
cockney sports  boats and boaters
double  ended  postcards  on the pier
lost pic 'nickers
big wives at the bust  over small  husbands


changes
mouth like scream and wet bladderwrack 
see saw drown the lady
tragic wailing ladies
eyes are cold like curling shells
upon which   old crag painters make strokes  of a ship going down
masts, rigs and Bessie  names
Nancy in the  storm
Isabella  and the Avalanche


"are  you coming back from a swim?" - I said this - sounds  sinister
she smiles  like cornfield
she smiles  like bride
never comes back 

salters  ghost by Mark Littler  May 2013