MR FARAGE AND THE TIDE

Mr. Farage looked at the coast and bawled,
through a BBC megaphone
sponsored by Gazprom, at the sea.

All this water, coming over here,
taking British shingle from British beaches!

Kelp coming up through the stone.
One high tide.
Mr. Farage plays Cnut
in his highchair, throwing all his rattles
at the oncoming flood 'til it turns
and hangs him dry.

A conference of molluscs applauds.
Crabs lick their claws and descend.

LOVE POEM BY BILL MANHIRE

If you asked me
to choose, I'd hesitate
some.

Love. Not there.
Unseen.
Being near

when your limbs bend
and soften
like sand under seawater.

I'll talk the ocean bed
to you. A tentacle that grips.
The abyss.

OCTOPUS: A FISHY TALE

We never meant to become entangled
in its limbs that tickled, wrapped and strangled
round our arms and necks. I saw the bosun
go in first with his glittering harpoon,
aloft at the end of a sinuous
arm and saw it snapped in eight by strong legs
licking round the blade like eight generous
tongues. It thralled us all, twenty dolly pegs,
each clipped in place along a suckered snake
that slimed and writhed across an ocean floor.

What gave us breath? Who knows? Two hours or more
it raced over reef and bank. In its wake
a haze of bubbles shimmered, powder kegs
of sand exploded where its enormous
tentacles dragged the sand and lifted dregs
of wrecks like ours. Others too, courageous
in their effort, must have drowned. Only one
escaped. My muscle slipped the net, slick-spun
flesh that tightened vices where it angled
strangely hooks and knots and finally dangled.