Gardens

A zinc afternoon. The barges black,
And black the funnels of tugs nosing
Phlegm-colored waves slap slapping
Stone wharves. A smell os sacking
and soot. Grey chimneys, and statues
Grey with cold, and grey life belts.
Now the arthritic gulls,
Seedy with displeasure, crotchet on railings,
Falling with a fat splash on wet bread.
Green is under black in the gardens,
bearing the frozen face of Huskisson,
Statesman, but trees are black all throug.
The sun fumes behind mist which rises
To thicken this smoke, make dusk black.
The rive, eyed by launches, hangs its cranes
That grab nothing
But cold black air, aqueous and rotting.

By alan ross