Gabriel Griffin is the creator and organiser of the annual Poetry on the Lake spring international poetry competition and autumn festival. She gave Readings and Seminars for the Unesco World Poetry Day, the Venice Biennale and cultural events in Milan.
Her work has been prized in competitions and published in a number of magazines and anthologies since 1999.

Quelle: poetry p f


Lament for an illegal immigrant

No moon, but fishermen
are used to that and the sea’s chanting,
the descant of the nets. The decks
silvered with sea verses,
the minims and trebles of fish
hushed into songbooks of ice.

Something didn’t sing, humped
in the net, thudding onto the deck.
Its ears heard no notes, its eyes
were blind to the men standing round,
its throat choked with words
that no-one would hear.

They let the sly octopus
sidle to the ship’s side, forgot to stop
the arch and leap of bream.
The sea moaned, the fish
slipped out of tune, the kittiwakes
hurled screeches like broken strings.

The men unfroze, thumped
what didn’t sing, what was lost for words,
over the hissing deck. Tipped what had
no hope, had never had a hope,
back to the sea. No
word, no hymn, no prayer.

But the rags of its clothes cried. The sea
beat its fists on the boat. And the wind got up
and howled till dawn.

Prized and published by Barnet Borough Arts 2006