Peter Newall has worked variously in a naval dockyard, as a lawyer and as a musician. He has lived in Australia, Japan, Germany, and now in Odesa, Ukraine, where he leads a local blues band. His work has been published in the UK, Europe, the Americas, India and Australia.
The tide slack.
Tired waves
lap the coarse sand
then retreat, hissing.
Seaweed, a rank green smear
along the crescent beach.
Gulls cry on rigid wings.
From behind the bare dunes
she steps, a king’s daughter,
all white, with gold
wire binding her pale hair.
Each morning she comes
to see the ocean’s tribute;
starfish, nautilus, a narwhal’s tusk.
Or ships’ detritus,
markers of wreck, loss and drowning;
wine jars, barrel-staves,
frayed cordage stiff with tar.
But always some offering.
Today
a man. Lying
across the tideline,
his bare feet washed
by the small waves.
Heroes always come
over the water, she knows;
the old poets had written it.
Nausicaa, I am Nausicaa, she told him, the sun
blazing around her head.
Looking up, he gave
a name she did not understand,
a coarse, predatory name,
signifying danger. Nevertheless
she took his hand, led him
to her father’s house, because
he had been sent by the gods.
But once there
he forgot her;
already, fever-eyed,
staring out over the glittering sea,
asking for a new ship, telling urgent lies
about long voyages and great thefts. Then
he was gone.
Later she bore a son. Who
was my father, he asked.
But she could not answer,
could not make her mouth
form
that wolfish word.
FISHING VILLAGE
Night. On the sea-cliff
two lanterns,
yellow, wavering. Below,
the water,
angry, hissing. The boats
will not go out at dawn.
Muffled, the fishermen
turn back. The path
well known, even in darkness;
bushes, salt-stunted,
a black fence awry.
Then in the curling mist
the houses; grey stone,
built low against the north wind.
Their wives asleep, the fires
only coals. It is late.
In this hard season
the old ocean gods
nameless, turbulent,
resurrect themselves, rise up
from the seabed. Roaring,
they tear at the rocks
with heavy bronze hands.
At evenfall
doors are barred,
windows shuttered.
A scanty meal; the catch
has not been good.
By candlelight
children are told
the ancient tales.
Poetry in this post: © Peter Newall
Published with the permission of Peter Newall