Two poems from the archives of The Tyneside Poets

The Drinkers


“Booze and booze again.

Along this beach, Mastodon traces still
in sand.

A single cloud, one bruise I can feel
swelling behind my brows.

The denim-blue Ocean gives up its garbage,
white as a blind man’s eye; cratewood, flint beads and khaki weed,
a dead seal buffeted by the tide, like a
lost kid suitcase.

Time waits, bottle-wise for every man, it
finds us here drunk and windswept, the
daylight itching like sand-mites in each
other’s eyes.

The distinctive canvas of that racing
yacht is not so now;
becoming one with the Danish coastline,
or is it Germany, that transparent blue-
skin of rock?

Seals are gutted and their pelts salted and
keel-hauled:

the sun cooks blisters on my thighs and
back wine slops from my flask,
blood from a gash.”

                                        Vincent Morrison

Aubade

Day breaks with the resonant clatter
of dustbins being emptied;
the unintelligible chatter of milk bottles
and the tuneless solo of a vacuum cleaner.
There is the breaking and revving,
the coming and going,
the greeting and objecting,
of delivery vans.
The vague orchestra of traffic
unfolds, gathering momentum,
as the non-winners of the football pools
seethe into the non-enthusiasm
of a new day.

                                       O.M. Canning