Beware my kiss among the seaweed stalks
the bone-lace wave
rubbishing among the pools
the whale who booms in to
bone-bound muscle.
We imagine and then enter it
and fashion the verb into
rim of the glistering forgotten.
Silence is immeasured until
pointed by braillings of tide-mud.
I watch the rocks weathering your shoes.
This we are sinking in is not sand, not
sad as silk tears on the swell,
worldclogged
water of the eye flows.
The sun under the sea is the sun
the sea accepts, from
the seal-swarming
wave-tilt at breakwater
beliefs set ashore as person’s
realm of ice-cream will melt
in the hands of error’s comedian,
addressing stuff of waves, casting aside
handshakes. Licit strong bonds govern us
but pulled also by underchains, ids,
the sea has a degree in silence
turns obsequiously
in pragmatic movements, loosening
where language rips other language
apart is where language starts.
– Giles Goodland
Giles Goodland was born in Taunton, was educated at the universities of Wales and California, took a D. Phil at Oxford, has published a several books of poetry including A Spy in the House of Years (Leviathan, 2001) Capital (Salt, 2006), Dumb Messengers (Salt, 2012) and The Masses (Shearsman, 2018). He works in Oxford as a lexicographer, teaches evening classes on poetry for Oxford University’s department of continuing education, and lives in West London.