Poetry by Mantz Yorke

​Incineration
 
The meadow grass is shrivelling, turning black:
the fiery ring is spreading, its heat burning deep
into my skin. I step back from the blaze,
acrid smoke stinging my eyes, and weep.
 
The tree stood at the centre of the field
we flew our kites in, its leafy cumulus
a shelter whenever it rained.
Nails in the trunk let us climb
beyond the hole my grandad showed me
(he said it was a woodpecker’s,
but we never found an egg,
nor even the beginnings of a nest)
and on into the high branches
caressing the blue of a summer sky.
Swaying in the wind, we'd spread our sails
and bear towards New England,
whose autumn hues and teeming seas
lived on beyond each nightfall
and descent to sleep.
 
A livid cloud is spreading above a pillar of smoke.
Log by rotten log, the tree is crumbling into ash.
Far to the east a cold dead moon is rising, huge,
shivering in the superheated air.
 


​
 
Tribute, Scalby Ness, Yorkshire
 
Black against the blue sea, the tuft
became a spray of flowers propped
upright by a stick, still in cellophane
and tied with a maize-yellow bow,
the heads of the orange gerberas
and white chrysanthemums lowered
as if in respect. The card, a tribute
to a much-loved dad and grandad,
gave neither name nor indication of why
 
the flowers were there. Was Long Nab
a favourite spot of his, with views
to all points of the compass – south
to the ruined castle beyond Sea Life’s
intrusive pyramids and the sands; north
over the scars of Burniston Bay; west
up Scalby Beck’s winding, shrub-sided
dene; east to the far communion
of sea and sky? On a rougher day,
 
would he have relished bracing himself
against a gale sweeping waves across
the rocks they’ve already scraped bare
and hurling spray a hundred feet up
into his face? Only his closest know. 
Like me, a few may speculate, but most
who walk this cliff will have no chance,
for the next storm will whisk away
the withering blooms and leave no trace.

​

Mantz Yorke is a former science teacher and researcher living in Manchester, England. His poems have appeared in a number of print magazines, anthologies and e-magazines in the UK, Ireland, Israel, Canada, the US, Australia and Hong Kong. His collection ‘Voyager’ will be published in February 2020.

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