Claire Kroening
Mervyn Seivwright
She Was Called Plansee
We drove through bending, elevating,
descending Alpine Forest roads
to Linderhof Palace, though
what wasn’t made by human hands
paused me, pulled me to the road’s frame
of my picture. Scanning the canvas,
senses stuck in the silence of an eyeblink.
Crystal Jade rippling lake comforted
in the clutches of Austria’s Alpine
mountains in teal tints from their kisses
with the azure sky. The wind raspy,
gentle, holding me in a space, listening
to my breath align to waves beats
against the lake’s shore. In this moment,
I can exist to exist past the moments I seek
not to remember. In this moment, I seek
to be selfish even from my love, beside me
lost in her moment, as I, raising my arms,
my Titanic movie instant to be a sail
bringing each sensory connection closer,
stress stripped, a layer of my tree cleansed,
tussling sand tumbling through my hourglass.
Photo of Plansee by Mervyn Seivwright
By the North Sea
Felixstowe back then, was not as quiet as this morning,
when I was a boy. The sun perching over, stretching arms,
glazing a path across the North Sea, greyed
silhouettes of transport ships dancing along
the horizon, seagulls are surfing tunnelled air waves
in the sky-wind’s crests. There were more stones
across the beach shores in the seventies, hills
of overflowing smooth sanded stones before ball pits
in indoor kid’s fun centres, that we would jump in.
The personal beach sheds against the coastal walkway
have rainbow colours and are locked until the warmer
seasons come. One in bright teal, titled “Albert,
by the sea,” next to the lavender titled “Nan
and Granddad’s Place.” I came to here too early.
I can smell the six overlapping fish and chip shops,
their greasy battered sausages, large cod fish,
salt and vinegar drenched chips yearning my drips
of saliva from taste buds, while the doors are closed.
It’s after Boxing Day and these business owners
maybe still in a drunken piss and tummies full
of family ale and dessert afters from the days before. I see
the illusion of myself in the entertainment parlour,
ears engorged from clashing beeps and popping
music from the maze of silly penny and shilling games
before video games were thought of, lasting hours
lost in Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island. Waves
pounding against the rocks, not sand, jolt emotions,
surface memories, brings heartbeats to deep breath. I can see
the spirit of my mum at the wooden shed vendor
selling fifty pence shellfish cups, my mum
slurping them, smiling her silenced life-frowns away.
Mervyn Seivwright writes to balance social consciousness & poetry craft for humane growth. He is a nomad from a Jamaican family, born in London-England, and left for America at age 10, now residing in Schopp-Germany. His performance poetry highlights include events in 9 countries, with features at The Jazz Café, & a finalist at the UK’s Word-for-Word National Poetry Slam. Mervyn completed a writing MFA at Spalding University and has appeared in AGNI, American Journal of Poetry, Salamander Magazine, African American Review, and 55 other journals across 6 countries, receiving recognition as a 2021 Pushcart Nominee & Voices Israel's Rose Ruben Poetry Competition Honorable-Mention. He has a pending collection due in Autumn 2023 through Broken Sleep Books. You can access his website at https://www.clippings.me/mervynseivwright.
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