Travel Scrabble in Devon
By Noo
- 631 reads
Tank
T is for Tank
Rising, iron black
Sharp edges, water blunted
On the sands at Slapton
A monster
Leviathan
Strange and impossible thing
A tank shouldn’t rise from the sea
S is for Secret
For events that didn’t happen
No matter what you think you saw
Don’t ask don’t tell
Of the people evicted from their lives
To create fake lives for soldiers
Rehearsal, exercise
People uprooted on the say so
Of colonels and men in high places
With country homes in other counties
Always tell the truth, children
But careless talk costs lives
So don’t talk
Instead listen
To the voices under the water
Nine hundred men singing in harmony
With the music of the sea frets
Watery lyrics blurring land and sea
We lived here, we died here
We existed
And the tank rises
With seaweed ammo and limpet guns
Evidence, proof
A teller of the truth
***
Sea tractor
Rate actor
Sea tractor
As odd as its anagram
Mad Max machine
Treading the causeway
At Bigbury on Sea
Prototype monster truck
Ambling vehicle
For a gentle apocalypse
From Bigbury beach
With rough-housing puppies
And rough-housing boys
To Burgh Island
Sea pink wildness
Craggy aqua pools
Dizzyingly below
At the top of the island
You see it as such
Only that
Land surrounded by sea
The art deco hotel
Hardly dents the grasses
You close your eyes
And the lady and the land
Vanishes
On the sea tractor back
We’re King Canute
For a moment
Parting the tide
Watching the boats
Where fishing is ancient and
Still only fishing
And the little boy
Clings to his daddy’s leg
And waves at the waves
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Comments
I enjoyed reading this
I enjoyed reading this scrabble tale, more so as I passed by there recently, including a stop for fish and chips. Not on Burgh island I hasten to add, eating with ones fingers in a grand art deco hotel.
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There's a lovely staccato,
There's a lovely staccato, stream of consciousness feel to this. I suppose it replicates the fact that you never know what you will get when you dip into that little green bag.
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Love the word-play and the
Love the word-play and the sense of place. Full of stories from the past. I remember going to that pretty island on the strange contraption, so pleased there's a poem about it!
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