Andrew Shiston Poems

Come with me to this Island in the sea
Tears of stone shed by ancient mountains bones
The curving shore for all good men to see
...

This Island, this out-thrust spit of land
At the end of miles of stone
Where on the farthest cliff-top
A lighthouse stands alone
...

The fog is lifting and the foghorn silent
On the point of Portland Bill
The lighthouse light extinguished
Only seagulls now are shrill
...

The lightning and crashing of thunder
And squalls of gale force wind
Leave the sea a striped peppermint humbug
To a horizon the eye cannot see
...

Seagulls soaring over white water
Wings stiff in the black sky
Storm clouds race the raging wind
As breaking seas crash by
...

The sky grows dark, seagulls scream
The wind begins to howl
The storm is close, we cringe with fear
The sea grows larger still
...

Forlorn and standing tall
In an empty dockyard basin
Bent and rusted rails
By broken fallen walls
...

Sea lies in the harbour
Stone piers straddle the ebbing tide
Ferryboats still bob and turn
Bows on, moorings still tied
...

Through the Suez Canal, on to the Red Sea
And towards the east
Where lives the nomad tribes
Across the dry and arid deserts
...

From many fathoms deep
In the dark and dismal depths
Where day and sunlight disappear
Lays a rusting rotten wreck
...