A Rebirth Denied

An account of a phoenix drowning

Never
Since my first imaginings of fire
Have I conceived
Of something so sublime
As the drowning
Of a phoenix pyre

No flame heats
The boiling sea
only the frantic feathery pods
Of sodden seeds
That need the funeral sun
To trigger the life
That to the bloody ocean bleeds

The perfumes of Arabia
Deprived of desert
Smell just of salt
in a squeezed throat
A soaking song Sinks
While a drought thirsty tongue
Helpless drinks

The sun weeps tears
That come blazing down
In golden spears
The marriage bed is flooded
The wedding annuls
The cries go unheeded
Except by the gulls

Sea gears grind
Forcing too late
The now unwilling wings
Of the drowned phoenix
a lurid corpse
Who mocking rides
The robot waves
And mindless tides