Hidden Agenda
By Paul Cameron Brown
Mariachis, almost a Spanish temperament within those stars,
- a screen peppered to black,
pebbles as pinholes bright in the night air.
Winged bats, moist velvet foot-pads
that spring from ink spots onto an El Greco canvas
where Garcia Lorca's green, Andalusian hills
find the wind a gypsy bandit
sage, red flower of the cacti,
ballad to rakish cloud.
A ship shamelessly at sea -
the scorpion cloth of open wounds,
dark implants, sturdy oak
constellations, English yew
spouts tremulous shafts
across weather-burnt sky.
A dock in a prison of rose-petal harbour.
Piers along deep, inner space.
Our planet, rockface. Sheer plummet.
Accordion of white light.
Up green ache of mountain
the muffled sound
Goya's Colossus,
the head of the giant
voyaging thru
embroidery and stellar, black space;
tombstone lock on a pulsating world.