Joanne Elizabeth

published in Forward Poetry Near & Far anthology October 2012

Joanne Elizabeth waits.

Beneath a powder blasted
cornflower welkin,
washed by a summer zephyr’s
saline kiss,
she waits.

Atop her rubber footed
iron bed,
on the sand and pebbles
amidst the tidal spume
and detritus
she watches.

A brusque, oily breathed
airborne flotilla,
the sky's very own
flotsam and jetsam,
gyre and gripe
and tarry.

The ocean
is ready now
as garrulous salvos wuther
up peaks and troughs,
and churn the beryl
into muddy soup.

And now there are men,
in a flurry
of flavous oilskins,
who rough house
Joanne Elizabeth
stolidly asea.

Edged mindfully into
the grubby moil
she bucks atop
each tumbling crest
and turns her back
on Neptunes cache

Those brine zested swabs
set fair to the wind
and pitch her alee
once more through the surge
but Joanne Elizabeth
testily abjures

Rebuffed , repulsed
and firmly aground
the mariners surrender
their petulant mount
and humbly drudge
ashore

They stand
forbearingly in the face of
a caustic mizzle
steadfast  gaze
a  good league distant

“No fish today”