About…

The poem is part of, and precursor to, several poems about the whereabouts of thought .

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Book 301 is intended to be a collection of poems by Mike Burr for 2010 with no thematic precept.

Lough

the crippled waves of the long sea lough
recite their marvellous gangling stories
the jet-stream overhead conveys their breath abroad
like flaming darts escorting the northward chariots of cloud
for yours are peculiar tales full of locality
below the trials of universal skies
below beyond the tidal breach where set down the
sad detritus in mysterious patterns
and random hints of wooded lands
rumours spread among the smooth breasted valley
the root of tales of picturesque and far away
whispers are among the lilac reed and water iris
that you have died
a misleading death for in the morning sunlight
late above the hills arriving
steaming across its green coverlets and down
follow down the river bed where dark spotted salmon bed
to the flowing lough
there are you at lavatory
your face askew as off the ties of adulthood are shorn
your hair drawn out thread in waving fronds
migrating with the slowly ebbing lough
its currents - where have they lain your thoughts to rest ???

Sources…

Original concept began with a line from one of the poems by George Haslett Connor

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