Fear of Moving Water by Alex Grant

$15.00

Paperback

This is a day that will never happen again for me - my first full-length poetry collection was released! I came home to find the books waiting, and Charlie Hughes at Wind Publications has made a beautiful book - and I thank him for taking it on. The book had been a contest finalist 12 times and I was really close to giving up on sending it out again - I'm so glad I persevered, and that Charlie found it. The web-page for the book is here:

http://www.windpub.com/books/movingwater.htm

This is the first poem from the book.

               Black  Moon

I watch him drag the boat across

   the scree, over the dry doggerel

      of mackerel scales and filament

of a season ended, to the water.

    The sand flays the last flakes

      of paint from the boat’s hull,

splash and crack at the confluence

   of stone and water, and he is out    

     beyond the waves, where fishbones

glint like small suns in a black mirror,

    and the splay of the Pelican’s wing

        stitches the sea to the sky. Brine-

bleached hands haul the sodden creel

   above the gunwales, and there again

       is the gaping child-shaped hole,      

sawn by the snapping-turtle’s teeth,

  ragged-cut and impossible to mend.

      Did I say that the turtle is guided

by ambient moonlight? So, the wolf

   howls. The waves gnaw at the shore.

      Bones and light are mixed with water.