John Martin
Argentina
At a hundred miles
across the Pampa
was a tree
that I saw
as I stood
holding the bridle
of my horse
as a small owl
landed on the pommel
of my saddle
and regarded me.
My horse
was still
until the owl flew.
Then mounted
in the saddle
I could see another tree
Stoneman
At Skagen harbour
sky wind and sea ragged.
On the water a machine
surrounded by sea, thirty yards from land
with tank tracks half covered by waves
its hydraulic arm elbows the sky,
its steel scoop with sharp metal teeth
lifts stones the size of bullocks
from beneath the waves.
They are black and smooth
oblong with rounded ends
glistening and dripping
rolled by glaciers
With grace and speed
the arm rotates with the cab,
discordant with the irregular chop
of the waves.
The machine stands
on underwater rocks
placed to make a groyne.
With jagged clangs
the arm searches deep behind
and below in the sun speckled choppy sea,
picks up a boulder,
swings it in the air
and places it seawards.
Slowly Stoneman progresses,
his foundation moving
in darkness beneath,
disappearing behind him
as he advances his metal tread
upon the sea.
John Martin’s first poetry and short story collection, ”The Origin of Loneliness”, was published by JMF Press. He has had poems in The London Magazine, The Lancet. He has served as a soldier, studied philosophy before medicine, and currently works as a doctor and scientist in Europe and the US. He has homes in London and West Cork.