4 June 2017

Wind came, cyclone-like,
round the headland,
and blew an overturned
scull off the pier,
right side up, onto the water.
The thought of sculling,
in such a headwind,
vanished as it rose.

Like a mind jumping
from thought to thought,
the scull jumped
from wave to wave,
the scull like a cranium
trying to reason with the headwind.

A red flag was hoisted.
The water was
not the place to be.
Rocked crafts back and forth,
as though on a liquid rocking horse,
while other crafts pulled
at their anchors, like horses
about to bolt.

Snapped the air the flag like a whip!
Cackled the flag like a witch,
as it flapped rapidly.
It meant red, as it warned.
How the wind howled!,
a wolf, rabid, hungering.

Philip Kuepper
(5 April 2017)