Rockpools & Faustus has forgotten his medication
by Robin Ford
[ poetry - february 05 ]
Rockpools
They are shallow as spoons, varied as oceans
swayed by moon, tides both neap and spring,
tiny by daytime, small reservoirs of shouts,
laughter, muttered monologues.
At night secret and invisible except
when little fish stir beads of phosphorous.
A five year old still in the everlasting time
of life discovers his perfect pool:
winkles, limpets, sea anemones
a hop-skip-jump of slick green rocks.
He slips and bruises, finds the flaw
in his own world, then with shrimp net
dismisses pain and land - water is his mirror
and his world, he merges with reflections,
emerald things and tentacles.
Argosies and visions sail across his mind,
not the usual crises which must happen,
not love, routine and happiness, fickle
as plastic bags in a gale, but something numinous,
immediately distracted by a darting fish.
Faustus has forgotten his medication
has left his pills at home, wherever that might be,three days on, despite the growing tyranny of pleasures,
small fires and devils flicker at the edges of his eye,
they run a painted cloth of flame behind him
and another gray and black, a pall of soot and cinders
as if he were a mountebank or strolling player.
Is giddy.
His flicky eye refuses focus, carmine tides flood dark canals,
no straws to grasp, he drowns in unrequested fantasies.
Is this part of bargain or a monstrous trick? Now, poor chick,
it is as if he sailed high seas upon an upturned table,
a curtain rail and single sheet for mast across the retching seas,
what hope, what hope for those at peril riding choppy sunsets?
His life-tide turns El Nino, there is a roar of jeering crowds,
never quit a port unless your hold is filled with blister packs.
How will this fadge?
Can he fetch up beside the place he once called home?
Too rough a night to make it to his study or his brothel,
who can guarantee no seas will swamp his craft
and should he reach the shore he longs for, his house
could pullulate with stoats and weasels from the wildest woods.
