trout

Vanishing Map

David Eggleton

Under zero sum games of festering sun
and daredevil shapes of sub-machine guns,
the shrouded spinning bride is wooed
by swivel-eyed slaphead and gang of goons.

Shoeless fighters slope like panthers after
King George rubbed as smooth as a waiter,
shiny like mahogany. His plantation dog
stalks curfewed towns, a medallioned god.

In drummed time to coconuts chopped apart,
new market-masters upset old pineapple carts.
They ukelele like ghosts round sly-grog bowls,
urging all peoples to make ready their souls.

Resort dancers tralala leis of frangipani,
firewalkers of Diwali sway in Hindustani.
Bush orchids send gardens drunk with scent,
but coup-money sweat stains khaki government.

A weed-eater's busy engine gabbles its pidgen,
wringing out discourses on freedom's meaning.
Villages let small tongues of flame feed at night,
red hibiscuses bleeding into dawn's grey light.

Hot days crawl past, so brooding and sluggish,
termites riddling the islands map to lattice.
Rusty jaws crush dark rivers of molasses
to the sea whose surf is as white as narcissus.