for David Bromige
Salty dung stones round the air, and ground the coffee stone smell on the medieval castle, musk is the gryphon’s pleasure. High in a mountain’s armpit, we see the away blue valley below: watch birds a different flight, a different thought to green a different color. Ruttish sooted chimneys smoke the contrast, brown the shiny gold, its hoard, and leaves the tarnished gryphon. The dark leaves, with its dank leather feathers, claws and the curved beak, decorate its muscular balance. Tail fulcrum the wings, growing roughness, that gryphon, panting thick musk breaths. The gryphon eats sweating potato darkness, in our chests, the place of strength of body, the brown lion den darkness, flying.
July 1971