geraldinemonk




all my seas aren’t yours


liverwinds
                      kindazzle
up
            my coastal dreams -
grossgrog
                     bulkram
                                         bustywater

the sea and other animals 
should not be teased

    your mid feather
    your oyster egg

wrackwinds
                        bladder
up
               my  central city soul -
mournfly
                     melancholic
                                              memor-

besides the
                     I do sea
a childflood
of olive oil
                        love
slapped on 
                       barefaced paddles
lapping mid 50’s fall out
                    
Windscale
                      leaks radioact
up
         pepperminted rock
                     ’pool
written all the way through                                          
                                                      illuminations
g-flowered in the dark

xstream sentimentality 
is the trump card of capitalists
                        
             to be born without
          the shipping forecast
                     spelting
       through my mid ship-mind
          shadowing deep death
                 at dinner time
                      and tea
            is to be only half born

            your mid exquisite wave
            your ovulating crest
                

lost in sandmares  -
                                      wonderworld sees worryworld
                                                           in a grain





Lisboa

The Wrong Boat

Traversing the Tagus
in a totally wrong
                                    rose
steeped in hermetically sealed
          Pyrex
without dishiness or sails
without
  oh-err-mrs
                           bumpz and liltz

Riding in the back of an infernal Sea Cat

cooped up
and close 
wi
Nick Cave
&  K. Minogue
- tiny little thing -
in yer face
blasting faulty
           murther
                        ballads

(we blank-eyed the wet proof 
video water
beyond the doubled-glazed glass
shell)

            our withering was a
system without weather
              caught in a one way ticket
across the premature Styx

    d-d-d-d-d-dey-call
                d-d-d-d-d-dey—call
    dddd
               m-me ddd

the skin on our skin
turning sardine
sans silver
gathering
smell without
sea
or 
sin

    d-d-d-dwild
    d-d-d-dewild

murderous to the soul 
is a faulty sound
system trapped
in a trapped space

   
    rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-o-o-ose

murderous to women &
giggly  girls
are faulty men
in a trapped excuse           

                   they call me the wild rose


                   but  my name is just my name
 cor de rosa

       her lips were the colour of roses.
bacalhau

cor de rosa
stains the sky

cor de rosa

bacalhau
 
                      they call me the wild rose

cod ballads

            where the wild
                             roses grow

between

her

name is

just her  name

between her

cor de rosa

 
                        we  kissed goodbye

                         all beauty must die

                         on the last day

between her

her

between

her

rosa cor de rosa

drowning teeth

and 

fins


 



geraldinemonk was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1952. Since the late 1970s her poetry has been published in many anthologies, most recently appearing in the Anthology of 20th Century British and Irish Poetry (ed Keith Tuma, American Oxford). She is currently a co-publisher of West House Books with Alan Halsey. <source>


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