FAIRY TALE by Graham Burchell
I can scare children as the Victorians aimed to do
even on an August beach tell a fairy tale one woven more cruel than castles turned to sand and
washed into oblivion by the evening tide
I can think a tale in sea forests
black haemorrhoid weed where pebbles become life form
or unfortunates petrified by the moon eyes of fish
portents of doom cruel just as shell is
made from the powdered bones of man
I may tell of anti-tides that snatch at fool child toes
those that venture further than where they are meant to go
kids yanked open-mouthed into water babies
minds maddened forever in that perennial wilderness
I see your children Kingsley Hans Christian Brothers Grimm
in silly striped or frilly costume
about to test their altered wills
with ghost ankles in the small surf and imaginations bleeding
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