Regent's Canal
A sky-blue mask strokes a bicycle wheel, where
sunrays dot supernovas on piss bubbles. Hairy green
algae wriggle with geese beside crushed silver
canisters drained of their highs. Barge-froth dazzles,
opens third-eye reveries, isolations, pairings, zests,
sharp glimmerings. Needles. Mint. Burnt jasmine.
Glass. The towpath curves left between slime
and valerian. Zephyrs cough shadows, stir sun-dot
gypsophila, sun-dot Andromeda. Bronze-dappled
boots drown, like gods, in one quagmire of beer
cans. Windows flare on bridge and burst diesel.
Look, a cosmos is forming, stretching and coiling.
Where does it go? A grey-gold gosling straggles
and zooms, flappy, among undulant scums.
sunrays dot supernovas on piss bubbles. Hairy green
algae wriggle with geese beside crushed silver
canisters drained of their highs. Barge-froth dazzles,
opens third-eye reveries, isolations, pairings, zests,
sharp glimmerings. Needles. Mint. Burnt jasmine.
Glass. The towpath curves left between slime
and valerian. Zephyrs cough shadows, stir sun-dot
gypsophila, sun-dot Andromeda. Bronze-dappled
boots drown, like gods, in one quagmire of beer
cans. Windows flare on bridge and burst diesel.
Look, a cosmos is forming, stretching and coiling.
Where does it go? A grey-gold gosling straggles
and zooms, flappy, among undulant scums.
C.P. Nield's work has appeared in journals such as The Rialto, The North, Ambit, PN Review, Obsessed by Pipework, Lighthouse Journal, The London Magazine and Magma.