wherever there's a tear in the fabric
around weymouth - portland appears
from abbotsbury hill it's just a long
thin line humped at one end
closer (from chesil beach) a head-on
massive lump of rock gnashed by the sea
if you stand at sandsfoot castle
there's a military feel - an armed guard
of an island harsh with prisons
snarling with secrets visitors don't probe
but on the road up out of town
towards the east a different spirit
rides inland over caravans and hedges
especially in soft light
portland softens like a pear
in syrup (yearning to be consumed)
elsewhere at other times it broods
a sleeping lion its paw upon
the carcase of its prey - but look
at portland if you can by night
its outline traced by street lights
its harshnesses seduced to
shadows - then the island hangs
beneath the sky in still festivity
its truths intact its wounds of stone
find blessing in the herbal dark
nothing of this of course is meaningful
unless inside us all there rests
a portland ravaged daily ill-at-ease
that has to use the night-time
for its solace - and each glimpse we get
of it assuages different guilts
