Peter Chapman Poetry

Alaska

I'm going north, to Alaska to escape the damage done,
the ice is melting faster now, it may undo my tongue.

Mererguey peaks I'll compose, in a cabin still and tight,
for keeping all that's lost and sly the warmer side of right.

When we're up here, thoughts and me, the spears
against
the skintight boats, the dark inside the ice

won't matter in the scheme of things, no more
bad or nice. I'll get what I have to say

by sticking true to north.

The whales
deep in their blue dark dives, the creak
and saw of cold, it fits into the scheme of here

like words cut into bone.

Let the fire go down, come here,
lift the chalice to my ice.