#247 - here’s the harbour and come across it

 

27.ii.21

427

2.58

here’s the harbour and come across it

a little bumpkin calculus

(as suggested by Slessor, Murray, Olsen and others)

 

over that brickmaze

tiled to the skies

edge up of steel grey

 

city is ringing

call klaxon

no one will hear

 

from a bridge, see bridges

fleet so many sail of the line

could ride … we fly!

 

elephants once! in the sixpence days

were there lanes to begin?

a penny drove sheep or the kiddies

 

high from the tides

and the mackerel smack

dark and deep, dissolving

 

all ghostly in glass

how the harbour grows back

a silent passage

 

girder up crane sway

some fog down

sandstone cut

 

flags fly

towers up out of cracks

the river cat wharves itself again

 

it’s only a moment over

cross head downwards

sunk in the day

 

all the world’s water

has been through here

me, you, too

 

in the window of a breeze hung out

chug chug of the tug

you have to imagine

 

every other bell as well

deep heaving ferry breaths

catch lights as you come

 

there’s nothing you can open now

world chokes

no soot flies here

 

in glass, and under, past

cloudhouses – Wynyard next stop

and come into the tunnel now

 

city is dreaming too

and bugger the moon

just a bit of graffiti

 

I’m over the bridge with you