Corvo Island

Corvo Island

Like a mistake
you lag the Atlantic
about your base -
a strip of white icing.

Your mass, an unblendable shimmer -
the handiwork
of a second-rate CGI editor,
rising softly off our port bow.

After 13 days at sea,
we stare longer
than is strictly necessary
gripped more by notion
than scenery:

the thought that land,
out here, can actually aspire from
these grey frigid waves
into a platform
for orange daisies and maize.

I wonder if a rabbit's ears
stiffen at our wind-carried cheers?

I plan to use you for
the album cover of an indie-rock band
I may never set up,
because you suggest the
correct blended recipe
of abstraction
and psycho-emotional profundity

Soon I’m plagiarising liberally
Sigur Ros tunes
as track content, fixating
on tour dates, cashing royalties
until, by landfall,
my future's there and packed...

---------------------------------------------

Chucking the rope to the harbour dude now;
his rusty beard is a peed-in frozen
waterfall. On his arm,
jet-black letters lathered like tar:

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”