A new poem by artist and poet Sam Duckor-Jones.

No Internet

He stood at a very western point

between some muscle bound water: here

& some title defending water: there

& it spat on both cheeks like a mean sloppy night & all waters were
black as the whole night too so all he could see was the throbby web
of foam that throbbed with Hollywood alien hunger & he thought

yellow bellied sapsucker

… the words arrived like wind tossed pebbles & scraped around in
his bones which as a result became larger secret ice caves
& rain came then & the dog dashed about in it

& enormous waves shouldered into the point & boulders shook &
the gape of the black & the hysteria of the white booed bravoed &
threw & eroded at him & all he could think was

yellow bellied sapsucker

which he did know was some kind of faraway bird
Yellow bellied, he supposed
& sapsucking

The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are now being accepted until 30 September 2023. Please send no more than three poems in a Word document to chris@christse.co.nz.