Without Maps

             
            

                             Pytheas passed it by,

                   off to the ultimate

                             fog-drift.

 
  Whales shriek,              sad in the sound,
  heralds of ice                inching in valleys
  above mud’s bubble     and mustering tremble,
  great with the gush      of the geyser-thrust,
  raking roots                 ripened in fire                 

  till Helgafel                   halts and humps,

 

                        waits, waits.

                   Pytheas sailed,

                   sailed and rowed

                             to the end of the world

 

Angels of the North

 


Being so caught up in coop and stay,
those yawed wings will not sway, nor shatter the coldest calm of winter's play
over the moor:

clumped feet clamped on the mound
root all angels fast. Air on their ground trails the high jets’ sound
over the moor;

their blood-rust drums on the clipped sky.
Staved backs to the east, eyeless, they face inland. Here they’ll die,
over the moor. 



“Being so caught up...” a phrase from “Leda and the Swan” by W.B. Yeats