STORMED

Layered across serene cashmere blue sky -

Clouds the colour of sweet aniseed sticks
I used to lick when I was only six -
Floating like fairy floss all gone awry.

I sensed the polar wind before it blew
Across the bold cobalt and yellow bay
And watched the sea turn a sad oyster grey,
Its waves rolled back into the fluid view.

Then blackness boiled over the southern hills,
Bulges surging like bows of great warships.
Squalls lashed me like the cruellest horsemen's whips
And sheets of icy rain drenched me with chills.