RUBHA DUBH RAVENS

 (First published in OTHER POETRY Series II no. 26)

1

Here deer fall from the sky

Sheep stumble and tumble down scree

Even goats lose their footing and plummet. 

Summoned from summits

By bone-crack on stone

Black surgeons come, 

Performing urgent post-mortems.

First prising out eyes

They stop to strop beaks,

Pluck fur from rumps -

Dissect from the rectum.

Out slither liver heart and spleen –  

The precious mess of intestines.

A loch that has tasted hot lava

Disgorges plastics onto rock 

The crock crock of Raven talk

Snags in crags above our heads

As we walk the track back to Carsaig Pier. 

2

Cuffed by winds the cottage creaks

Night seeps in.

We drown in sleep, 

Steeped in dreams of cave and cliff

And streams leaping free into air.

Stirring we surface like cetaceans. 

Lethargic I stroke your flank

Touch belly flesh and breast.

You turn - you splay, 

A consenting cadaver

To the pathology of love.

Sea shoves its way between hills, 

Shifting silt,

Lifting weed and shells.

Washed up carcasses 

Collapse to wrecks of ribs and skulls.

Mull`s afloat,

Straining the ropes 

That tether it to night.

Feathers clot together -

Rubha Dubh`s Ravens wake.