Poetry

The Draw

Sebastian Schloessingk

A competition to find the world’s

most evocative noise has been won

by the seagull’s cry. Raw tones

layering up, each seagull outcry plied,

often half way through, with another

 

and another, converging in the grey

above the stern. Or fleeting, no

mistaking, over an urban roof, who

knows why but with the big sea tang.

Faraway tough, scratched into paintings

 

(the look and the sound) by maître as by

child: those two-curve shorthand

cleavage squiggles above the slacker

curves of the sea. In Cardiff Bay

with its malleable boardwalk and Café Rouge

 

the winning entry can also be heard.

Out in the water, near the shore, from

a sly speaker limpeted half way

up a pole. In lieu of, or to draw

gulls to people Cardiff Bay.