A NEW POEM

Red River at the A30 Culvert

Fies nobilium to quoque fontutium

Horace, Ode 3.13

I pour through the culvert etcetera 

etcetera etcetera etcetera—you 

cast me away like rubbish as if 

I were not part of you.  How you shove me 

under, naked, a dying river god 

vomited through a concrete temple 

dedicated to forgetting, no

entablature, columns, mysteries

only steps left for me to race 

and roll my rapid wave of everlasting 

trash, modelled turbulence—my

anger-management programme.

I am small but rage Atlantic storms.

Delivering solutions to problems, you 

channel me straight to the caged

departure gates gagged with shit bags.

I’m the dirtiest of white-noise,

bright as a chlorinated fountain 

blowing into the dark down 

a waste chute you’ve made beneath

torrential waves of cars. 

Water, never river, my riving is riven, 

stained with brake dust, asphalt, 

diesel smoke, soaked-away rainbows, 

squalls condensed to the perpetual

note you have given me to smash

between walls, but I know you can 

never etcetera the same etcetera twice—