I hear the carve of oars,
I see your palms enfold the wood,
as shards of stars shred
a black and glistening wave.

I hear the carve of oars,
the shore is breached,
we reach dank granite stairs, climb
a tower in moon gritty light.

I hear the carve of oars,
you speak, your turgid cheek
blue-steel-gray, your gaze grates,
my salt raged eyes summon waves and stars.

I hear the carve of oars,
waves rattle a candle's flame,
chill the bed frame, the wet stony room ––
the door closes, it scrapes.

I hear the carve of oars.
I know your lurching gate,
the clank as oar lock’s turn.
You slip the shore.
I hear the carve of oars

Copyright © 2002 Gary Brocks

resting on his oars,
listens  the barcarole far;
drooping eyelids close!

The door out back from a cosy hamlet
is too a thorny one that is not often tread

Just when all seems certain and settled
life comes knocking and seething.

And you go walking the starry path,
the wayward path, the meandering path
to nine yards of nowhereness.

Questions, some are never settled. Invitations
some are never forever. Rhythms are not
made to last, just like the seasons. Winters
are the longest, deepest and darkest
that etch their cold onto pestles of the heart
that want to pound down memories a tonic.

Emerge, shadowy oars, from mists unraveling
by the shorey oceans lining the soul,

Slow here are the sailboats of hope
that we unfurl in sodden winds
and keep rowing on, on to the shoreless zons.

when the cold gets to the bones, I make a bonfire
of all my pasts, longings and belongings,

oh the late gull that shrieks past the silences.

All, but love. That, I cannot burn,
for that I am, I loved, and will love,
change forms, change norms, but that I will.