RUBHA DUBH RAVENS
(First published in OTHER POETRY Series II no. 26)
1
Here deer fall from the sky
Sheep stumble and tumble down scree
Even goats lose their footing and plummet.
Summoned from summits
By bone-crack on stone
Black surgeons come,
Performing urgent post-mortems.
First prising out eyes
They stop to strop beaks,
Pluck fur from rumps -
Dissect from the rectum.
Out slither liver heart and spleen –
The precious mess of intestines.
A loch that has tasted hot lava
Disgorges plastics onto rock
The crock crock of Raven talk
Snags in crags above our heads
As we walk the track back to Carsaig Pier.
2
Cuffed by winds the cottage creaks
Night seeps in.
We drown in sleep,
Steeped in dreams of cave and cliff
And streams leaping free into air.
Stirring we surface like cetaceans.
Lethargic I stroke your flank
Touch belly flesh and breast.
You turn - you splay,
A consenting cadaver
To the pathology of love.
Sea shoves its way between hills,
Shifting silt,
Lifting weed and shells.
Washed up carcasses
Collapse to wrecks of ribs and skulls.
Mull`s afloat,
Straining the ropes
That tether it to night.
Feathers clot together -
Rubha Dubh`s Ravens wake.