Red Point Quartet
(Red Point Beach, Wester Ross)
Knotbrook Taylor
1. Fishing Station
wasteland and borderline
to wander here narrows my eye
somehow among friends
we are random, scattered, left behind.
the old fishing station
boarded up, fading,
through a crack in the door
a lost green table
laid with a feast of bird shit.
beneath the window
piles of rusted chains
red beehives
accompanied by the humming
of guardian ghost bees
in the dark at the back
I piss
where they used to piss
on drunken evenings
when a storm was on
and the boats were beached,
things happened here
the station holds it.
crates of gutted fish
long filleting knives
rough hands on pale breasts
where the fishermen made love
came too late
I missed it all
2. Anchor Song
if the anchors could speak if the anchors could sing
from their rusted home at the front of the dune
they might tell of doggers and their sea dogs
wrecked and damned one by one
its a sandy eyed scratch at dusk
they're playing our song
3. Automatic Shipping Buoy
she lies on her side
on the high tide mark
bigger than a cottage
delivered here
in a wreath of kelp
winding gear tangled
her computer busted
all cables and acid
torn dress and dirty fingers
ripped from her rock
by a Celtic gale
there are dead astronauts
lying in the seagrass
4. Solitude Had An Arm Around My Shoulder
the breakers roll
a woman sits too close
on a promontory rock
I thought the beach deserted
solitude had an arm around my shoulder
but now I feel alone
I recognise those blue-black pupils
a warning
like the buoy
her eyes will not heal
we will not talk
I do not even know myself
not running away
just running
in a gesture like the sweep of the sea
my footsteps will loop
around her.
Published in Northwords Issue 18, 1998
(Northwords)
and in Beatitudes,
2007
(Blue Salt Publishing)
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