Friday, October 31, 2008

A Poem by Phil Crick

This poem is quoted from Treble Poets 3 Chatto & Windus 1977.

Quiberon by Phil Crick

"A ten-ton man
in a suit of stone
dozes face down
on the edge of France.

His green jaws nudge
the immaculate beach
and the low waves lance
a rift in his bone.

All ropes unreel
in his waterlogged heart.
He sways on his bed.
His vertebrae moan.

And he floats a long cry
down through the sand
that even the stars
and the quasars own.

Its echo shatters
the sky off Belle-Ile.
At sunset, too,
sea-owls murmur."

4 comments:

Unknown said...

What a goof poet! I used to holiday in those parts and he seems to capture its mystery.

Lucas said...

That's interesting. I could picture the Bel Ile of the poem as an actual place. Thanks for pointing it out.

Lucy said...

(Belle Ile is an actual place...)

Extraordinary to feel geography in such a way. Quiberon is one of those places, a little like Portland, that has a bony, sad, lonely feel. Perhaps it's a feature of rocky peninsulars. I really like this poem.

Lucas said...

Thanks Lucy for bringing the geography of Phil's poem home to me. The "bony, sad, lonely feel" fits exactly the mood of the poem.