Poem: ‘The Offices in the Old Baths’
Peter Redgrove, 17 November 1983
(for Peter Porter)
I
The maroon-hued slugs swallow the garden down. Out at sea the ships on fire with light Like burning soldiers drawn up on parade.
I switch on the electric light; It is a furnace in a vase. Then the maroon that slaps the night:
The lifeboat is out, One of those lighted ships is toiling With some current like a great maroon dragon;
Let its stacked lights not be quenched. I...