About…

The poem is about the erosion of relationship by peer or media driven desire.

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

Shores

i see you small, a turbulent boat a-troubled
and from the headland of i don't remember where
i stood the plume of salt the fury of the westerly gale
eyes ablazed and watery in themselves
a full the shock of coastal beauty
the reckless fortitude of seas
whose waters urge its plastic form toward the land
the rising swell above the bar of rock and sand
below its curving profile
rising cobra like it flings itself
upon the limbs and teeth of stone
their defending anger rending all the furies
to the boiling foam and froth of nothing
yet in each grain of sand
it earns its atrophy and those
many regimented lines are hurled
all to noisy fission canons one then one
and in undertows are drawn aback
regrouped they come
and never cease their insidious
or their brutal intentions at attrition
until the shores we love are washed away
until hope laid down beneath the seas is swept away
assumed into the mantles dust
and fired in its brimstone forge
to rise in palaces afresh far off
and where is your palace now
some where in the polystyrene clarity of modern worlds
recycled in its shop glazed front
your effigy is waiting
something compromised by obeisance to the rationales of
what you were told you needed
compromised by the commerce and the greed of morphous pressures
those of birth and those promoted and digested
through the maws of peers or just media confabulation
i see your small boat cresting then amid the crests is gone
occasionally to reappear far off amid the hurricanes distress
you could be here in your funny toggled coat
we could be holding hands a gloved
we could be laughing leaned against the power of elemental forces
like trees against the winds edge
i cannot feel your mind i only know there is distress
but where i can not find it on the map of conflict or design
we are no longer tied by ties unseen
that rattle in amorphous winds
or battle with the tides

Sources…

I'm not an avid reader however i found a good quantity of interesting books on a "trip to the tip" the other day amongst these was to be found "The Well at the Worlds End" by scottish author Neil "Bin" Gunn [referencing the famed tale by william morris ??] the scene of boat upon rough seas is a direct response to the books climatic ending and is a sort of jibe at its dour romanticism by suggesting that eventually relationships are eroded in the manner of those same seas battering the headland

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"like trees against the winds edge" is a reference to a picture Rob showed me of himself and his sister Amy leaning into a strong onshore November squall somewhere on our south coast