Nicholas Hogg Nicholas Hogg has been writing poetry for five years, and has met with success in several publications. Last year he was shortlisted for the UK's prestigious Eric Gregory award for younger poets. One to keep your eye out for! |
Out of bounds Towering power lines, sunlight on the cables, this little blue bike. The sea flickers and ripples, laps against the wall. I ride along the wharf in a glittering strobe, magnesium bright. I send you a picture of the bay by phone. The scene beams into space and plays on your palm. The horizon, scored with a city in gold, fades into shapes that merge with sky. Your screen is silent. No sound of the planes that bank and climb, the boats that motor and barely leave a wake. And loudest of all, above the industry and noise of the busying day, the sound of golf balls struck in a driving range. I can hear the clean thwack of contact, the after-swooshed whip of air, whistling flight. But no landing. No thud on the green or splash of a slice, just an infinite climb. Pocket moons launched like the image on your phone, satellites pinged in the dark of space, the ricochets held by the gravity of Earth. An orbit looped with dimpled spheres. Wish you were here Walking through town, and seeing old friends float on brown or crack, coke or dope, words of highs like whizz or speed, skunk inhaled. Thinking I knew you. Running from the school with a ball at your feet, running through the fields like a deer in flight, a homemade plane and the wind in your hand, a kite string taut and fixed to the sky. Running from the school with an ounce of weed, running through the fields like a wanted man, the cigarettes broken and a crumbled leaf, the breath-held rush like a sundae soul. To this. Tatters of veins and needle dreams, a wobbling ghost in the midday sun, an unknown shadow in the blank of need. Fade to blue Like Jesus, John is walking on water. Submerged by only an inch of sea, the sandbank is a mile out and performs miracles. At low tide it can surface like a tan back whale or magical island, a seam of floating gold. His aim is nowhere and progress is made, quick steps through a melting mirror, a self emptied and strange. And I too am here and happy. Happy to watch the waves unspool like cotton on a loom, to be simple in the beauty of distance, this electric of sky. (c) Nicholas Hogg 2003 |
