Frames of Reference
by Estill Pollock
Lines reworded in degrees Of ingenuity, flat-earth sonnets Cajoled into an Alp, sestinas A crux of calculated courtesies Parallel couplets, not Mirror images, rather, shadow Dialects, eagle’s claw Inflections, dry as river beds Underfoot, the crunch Of gravel, accents Particular to John Donne And cat’s cradle archives On pavements, greasy rain Slick as fish guts, a dare To nitwit poets promoting Books of brighter days . . . Images of gods of dry Places, painted red beneath A red sun, descriptions of rain An accepted mythology A deathbed dream of future Days, a monument to extinct Lineages, women in doorways In the sundial’s shadow Redshanks prodding low tides For creatures unchanged since Boiling-sea epochs, catchfire Skies Kilometre ice, rocks The size of houses turned And polished, nestling by Beach huts brightly painted Oil scum rainbows, pooled Near wells the children Dug for village water in The shadows of the rigs Space images, of seas Lapping mountain peaks Strung with skilifts To a long goodbye . . . Symbols on stones Deciphered as instructions To priests, for temple deities With heads of reptiles Ut-napishtim, named By some, Noah, built a ship In seven days, against The Flood the gods made Cloud narratives subject to The Butterfly Effect, devolved Along fault lines oracles Never saw coming Wild men, living Beyond time’s crucible, clay Images still wet In their hands . . . Lavender stems tipped In bee-sting purples, scents In dozy accolades Of summer, far from death Pines bent crooked, each Against the other, the way Old men lean laughing At each other’s lies Gumshoes rimmed in Field muck, left to dry On the porch, wildflower Seeds sly in the crust He remembered the hills And spring water dripping Into a copper kettle, set To catch stars From the creek mouth The small boat coaxed To woodland pools, mosses Breaking the sun’s fall Starlings, quick through Brushstroke thickets, express Conditions of quantum politesse More or less The lake path winding Between lightning-struck Trees, the moorhens On black water, trailing light A pine bark clearing, leafy Shadows overhead, an easel And palette abandoned To the rain . . . Regnal numbers of Kings Conditioned to disappointment And subterfuge, the eighth Henry, serial killer fatso The court painter tamed The jack-o’-lantern jaw, stray-dog Genetics now subject to The guild’s techniques Shading addressed pustules And the bully smirk, the cold Stare’s scaffolding of scars More stubborn The princess, swayed by His portrait, signed-off Her dowry to the match, against Whispers of a flaccid cock Torn by rogue regiments The kingdom fell finally To foreigners, their laws like bones Bleached in the sun . . . High caves eroded in The cliffs sheltered him From men with blades, their Preference for human flesh In the caves, in the litter Of seasons, a makeshift Ledge with offerings Of animals now stone The fire kicked-over, embers Cooling in the shadows Where the rock face shrugged Into deeper worlds Men with blades climbing To high caves through seas Long extinct, limestone Fossilised into gods . . . Post to post, straggles Of barbed wire like badly Strung guitars, warning strangers Of consequences Predators circling On rising thermals, wingtips Discharging turbulence Down to carrion decay The terror of the sun, dust Torque spirals, death masks Of twisted air and heat That kills On the river bend A lone tree, its roots sunk Through burials older Than prayers . . . Across chalk hills Vines like scripts of Sanskrit Verses, rigid sugars Ripe in the sun Winds jinking bright Sails, beyond The harbour sleek Hulls in champagne races Tourniquet twists Of country road, through Hills of orchard Diadems The town reinvented In the light, the dawn Across red roofs a barrel Of show-off clowns Clouds banking Against the sun, steely grey Against blue, these ad-lib Quips of cumulus Small birds chastise The rain, a chittering Complaint of seed pods Scattered in the wet . . . Flick-tail dolphins Breaking green Water, the ferry’s wake Filigree lace Dirty tugs nudging Tankers into berth, splinter Colours of coastline Pulled into focus Blue buoys marking Shallows, the yachts Impish, regatta spinnakers Tagged in spray A harbour memorial To the drowned, by The railings tourists Primping selfies A woman stretching In the sun, a tattoo Thigh to ankle, locknut Paisley fractals Flotsam of bank notes On the beach, the plovers Indifferent, preferring springjack Arthropods to currency . . . Between waterfall And waterfall, the ferns Supplicant, mosses In votive choirs Pines raked with rain, on The veranda, wet towels Confirming summer Has departed The wrench of isobars Defining features In the air, patrician profiles With a rakish flair Bluster weather Flattens thistles, shakes Banks of violets on paths Thought sacrosanct In the churchyard, cedar Shadows hung With odes, talismans against Rooks, whose weapons are mighty The Virgin In the portico, sullen poets In the cliff hotel, catechisms Courting alchemy In the clock’s carved Face, time, sumptuous Owl flights through sumps Of walnut burl . . . In old photographs Cadets at calisthenics, all In stiff collars and neckties Knotted Paintings of royalty, busts Struck in Roman style Commemorating Bacchus and bedroom nymphs Seasonal flowerbeds And fountains and a path To quiet waters, a fish Leaping in midair Late sun in rooms Dressed in mourning, black As the bacillus That killed the Prince . . . Rain, a risen God, night storm delirium Like lost chapters Of a Gothic novel Petal cottages opening From the lake, dragonflies Knitting flight paths From thinning light Cliff-edge paths For walkers, the waves Breaking hard, brazen On beaches A landslip geology Dissembled by tides, seams Of time, red As wounds Flint knuckles washed In wave slough, heartbeats Of sediment Beyond history . . . Delegate wasps table Sugary petitions Citing solstice, the plea Forensically argued Gonzo sonnets Paraphrasing Kant, hostages To narratives flipping Time and space The house on fire, houses In flood, seed acres Under juju spells, children In corners tapping screens By the gate, nuns Vowed to silence leave Scented soaps, in the honesty box Untended, a few coins Deep cover alias, so Long afield, no recall code Or route, all who knew him Dead or suspect Socrates, wincing at Bitter hemlock, his son A dullard, content with Life in the suburbs An old carpet, beaten On the line, dusty Incantations, laments And foolish prayers
Estill Pollock’s recent poetry publications include Entropy (2021), Time Signatures (2022), and Ark 2023, all from Broadstone Books in the United States. His earlier publications include the book cycles, Blackwater Quartet (2004) and Relic Environments Trilogy (2011). He lives in Norfolk, England. Archives of and links to the work of Estill Pollock can be found here.
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