Some Damp City
Jude Marr
a city of bulwarks, home to pent up water-gazers: side streets
a dreamy seaward throw: glimpses
of fixed rigging: rain-washed benches clinched to deliberate
land: a very nearly world, a city philosophical
whenever November: sea growing grim, I strive to find
counter reveries: breezes pistol the ocean: wharves
are silent sentinels: nothing surprises
seated northward, I lean into spume: my mind slips
by degrees: my gaze conjures ships of mortal sight: all old hats
hooked, each false step nailed, I drive off other waves—
elsewhere in the city philosophical, a siren sounds: at the coffin
warehouse thousands stand, crowds like green fields, each
little mouth a watery part: torn bills posted years ago weep red
in some damp city, each drowned bulwark a bloated hope: each
buoy a substitute head.
Jude Marr is a Pushcart-nominated nonbinary poet who writes to survive. Jude’s first full-length collection, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, came out from Animal Heart Press in 2020 and they also have a chapbook, Breakfast for the Birds, from Finishing Line Press in 2017. Their work has appeared in many journals, including Kissing Dynamite, Cherry Tree, Harbor Review and SWWIM. Jude recently relocated back to the UK after 10 years of living, teaching, and learning in the US.