Poor Richard : Leave Report : Mordros


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Poor Richard 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 dear kanga 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 Leave Report Sabbatical • Departure • Arrival • Elgin Crescent • A Shot of the British Museum • At the Victoria and Albert • The Book of Kells • At Kew • Through Pisa • Return to Iffley • Mordros Source: Poor Richard: Poems. Wellington: Port Nicholson Press, 1982 Electronic source: Poor Richard: a TEI-conformant transcription All poems © W. H. Oliver	Mordros Unlike the seagulls sharp in the eye of the wind slipping precisely aslant to the skin of the sea the crows fell like ash black on the bright morning. I walked to the cliff path passing a house named Mordros wondering if it might mean in the forgotten tongue something to do with death and followed the fishing boats the coasters creeping west the horizon smudged with ships the jet trails frayed by the wind converging out of sight. The crows rose up in the wind scattered and gathered again. The taut dive of the gull pierced like a thread of light the dark of their fallings wings. An erratum was published with this poem: “ERRATUM: The publishers regret the repitition of lines 1–6 in ‘Mordros’.” The repeated lines have been removed for this rendition.