Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch Poems

It must be hard to sail a boat without wonder,
a pure, childlike wonder at small things:
the colours of shallows over mud-banks, the wings
of cormorants drying on spit-posts, crabs going under
...

I have barely started these nocturnal labours
when the local cats come: first the neighbours’
fluffy white kitten bumps me with her nose.
Ginger Sheba, a ghost tiger, weaves and flows
...

The German battleship Tirpitz capsized after being bombed in a Norwegian fjord late in World War II. Several hundred of the crew perished in the upturned hull. About 85 climbed up through the ship to the inner bottom, and were rescued
...

The jetty is deserted in the sun. Warm light
streams to the river-bed, catching
the lines of feeding fish, bright
on the warm sand, seen clearly through
...