Polaris

Shipwreck, Ivan Aivazovsky, 1854

Paul atten Ash is the pen name of Paul Nash, who…

here is the north star. blinking into being. the prick of the pilot’s hand.
dead calm of a vast grey-black. where the offing inks up into the night.
only the ship’s creak. sea-spray mist. lead-shot eye of a whale. watching.
phantom clouds. the upcast rolling in. silver-silt. a silence in its churning.
here is the pathless sea. its dread absence of land. beneath a bone moon.
its threnody the dry clink of irons. the cries of a hold’s manacled ghosts.
here are the blood-soaked timbers. bearing the weight of strange cargoes.
white terror is a prow. carving virgin ocean. leaving the dead in its wake.
& white terror is a wave. relentless as empire. breaking on distant shores.
frozen eyes staring up from cold seabeds. condemned to a watery grave.

Tags

nautical poetry

Paul atten Ash

Paul atten Ash is the pen name of Paul Nash, who lives in Bristol (UK). His poetry has been published by Acropolis Journal, Apricot Press, BBC Radio 6 Music, Bent Key Publishing (forthcoming 2023), Boudicca Press, Bristol 24/7, Broken Sleep Books (forthcoming 2023), Deep Adaptation Forum, Envoi, Free Verse Revolution, Ginkgo Prize, International Library of Poetry, Luain Press, MONO. (forthcoming 2023), Needle Poetry, Oscillations, Pissoir (forthcoming 2023), Poetry School, Raw Edge, Salò Press (forthcoming 2023), Seaside Gothic (forthcoming 2023), Sídhe Press, Tandem, the6ress, Tiny Seed Literary Journal & Press, Understanding, and Visual Verse. His poem ‘Vital Signs’ was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2023; ‘Lines from a Hermitage’ was shortlisted for the Hexham Poetry Competition 2023; ‘Beneath Kintsugi Skies’ and ‘Eryri’ were shortlisted in the ‘Best Poem of Landscape’ category of the Ginkgo Prize 2022 and 2021; and ‘Tsunami’ won the ILP International Open Amateur Poetry Contest 1999.