Labyrinth


The Labyrinth


“Jabbered hedge-bank
judgments”—Ted Hughes
“Error,” Birthday Letters
______________________

Surrounded by stump-warts—
Estranged by brambly strangeness

Like entering a dark age dialect—
Peering into a sunken labyrinth

A leaking thatch-drip roof—
A sunken dark church next door

Like some low tide Lyonesse—
Scudding clouds, submarine trees

Huddled knee-deep in quag—
Rainy streets testing my limits

Throbbing gutters, squandering sewers
Searching for the Taw and the sea

I felt it flowing through me—
Sloughing soundlessly underground

Centuries of bog-mire, quagmire—
Morass-marsh and swamp-time



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