PS Cottier

Sea

It pulls harder than any roping octopus,
Kali’s deep green army of sinuous terror,
bites deeper than haunting white shark,
bloody ghost that gutted brothers before birth.
It throws off surfers, tinnies, yachts and tankers
like a gnarly horse at rodeo, then clowns with us,
pulling down rescuers, spewing out the sodden child.
At stony beaches it applauds itself with each sigh,
the percussive pebbles played by ten thousand hands.
Sometimes, floating, I feel it stroke my back, teasing,
fingering, like a well-schooled lover. It whispers
not yet, I’m not ready, when I’m ready, you’ll go down.

P.S. Cottier

This poem appeared in my first book, The Glass Violin, which can still be ordered from Ginninderra Press. (Go to the ‘About’ page of this blog.)

I am gradually getting back into my routine of coffee and writing, after too many exciting things happening recently. I am on a panel and reading at the Conflux science fiction convention here in Canberra this weekend, speculative poetry being one of my loves. But as this is at the weekend, I don’t see it as breaking my routine.

At heart I am truly a bore. But sometimes a productive one.

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