Tuesday 19 September 2017

Tuesday Poem: "At Days Bay" by James K. Baxter



To lie on a beach after
looking at old poems: how

slow untroubled by any

grouch of mine or yours, Father

Ocean tumbles in the bay

alike with solitary

 

divers, cripples, yelling girls

and pipestem kids. He does what

suits us all; and somewhere — there,

out there, where the high tight sails

are going — he wears a white

death flag of foam for us, far

 

out, for when we want it. So

on Gea’s breast, the broad nurse

who bears with me, I think of

adolescence: that sad boy

I was, thoughts crusted with ice

on the treadmill of self-love,

 

Narcissus damned, who yet brought

like a coal in a hallow

stalk, the seed of fire that runs

through my veins now. I praise that

sad boy now, who having no

hope, did not blow out his brains.



by James K. Baxter



For more information about the poet, James K. Baxter, see:



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