The starry night is consumed
By vapid moonlight;
Mere reflections shine
In an orange glow,
Like a cut-out hole
In black cardboard,
In front of blazing torchlight,
Forgotten reflections of memories
Of forgotten lyrics.

The imagery serves
Only to protect from
The incomprehensible vastness
Of actual space, free from abstraction,
Pressing down onto you as you stare
Up into the night, compressed
By the hydraulic press of the universe
Which ensures that which is big is really
Very small.

A shatter of glitter
Breaks over her eyes
When she looks in the mirror:

Swathes of pink
Speckled by silver circles
Matched by the anxious glittering
Of the waterfall
That is her earrings.

It's her last glance
To hold the spectre
Of herself
Until she explodes
With the other girls;
Prim and dainty.

Light on the water
the clouds shape
sheening the swells with pearl
before the wave.

How used are my eyes
to the immediate, to the
limits of a bent neck.

The salt and light conspire
to force the challenge.

And I sit here, clutching
them to me, for too often
I have fallen away like
the foam,
retreating, without
in my turn rushing forward
to prove the immovable.

A young man’s stand
for I am yet too young
for wisdom to mean
passivity.

I will force the challenge.