Storm Shore by Bob Nunn

White Sound

Anne Reynolds

A swirling haze of choking fumes
catches my throat on Euston Road,
as stuttering streams of cars and trucks
negotiate the flow.
Where wailing sirens blend
with the sound of combustion engines
and pallid trees nourished in the din of metal and rubber –
exhale oxygen.
and then, that certain sound –
the urgent hssssswhhhafuuuhhhh of the sea
in retreat,
silent beats, then rising, rushing forward
to crash down on Chesil Beach and spill
out of speakers across the pavement.
As the edges of reality smudge; nudged from City purpose
to zone-drenched winds,
where the rhythm of tides tumbles
flint and chert in froth and burble,
rolling them smooth as worry beads.
Pulse slowing, muscles slackening,
an outlander dissolving on the streets of London.

‘White Sound’ was a sound Installation by Bill Fontana at the Wellcome Institute on the Euston Road 22.09.11-16.10.11. The live sound of waves crashing onto Chesil Beach was fed to speakers fixed to the building.

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Secret Rivers

Anne Reynolds

Draw near and hear the tale
of Effra the Queen of Snow Island.
Born in the storms off Falcon Edge
in the year of the ghostly octopus.
Beloved by all her people, she danced
with the seven-pronged starfish
and bathed in the icy waters of Beverley Brook.
One black day the hot springs opened up,
spewing boiling plumes from the centre of the earth
into the Antarctic sky,
condensing into icicle fireworks
before swallowing Effra into
the lost world of Black Ditch.
The evil Lord Vidin had only to look once
on her chilled loveliness,
to know that she must be his for all time.
Under the streets of London, the secret rivers flowed
through Stamford Brook, Parr’s Ditch and Walbrook.
Vidin’s galleon powered by the beating of
a thousand butterfly wings en route for Westbourne.
‘What now my love, do you weep tears of joy?’ he cried,
as they neared the muffled bells of Wandle Church
where they would be wed before the clock struck Noon.
He wrapped sweet Effra in his arms and held her close
as she dissolved in the heat of his passion,
drop by drop, into Ravensbourne,
until there was nothing left of her at all.
Then from the rushing icy waters of the longest night
an iceberg flowed up Fleet and Peck that fateful day
and Vidin watched as it approached and dived below
and rose transformed into an icy throne
where Effra sat in regal chill,
crowned with sea anemones.
‘My love don’t go, I cannot live without you’
he screamed above the frozen winds.
She turned to look him in the eyes,
‘but I die if I stay with you’ her frozen lips replied.
Then looking neither left nor right
she returned to her frost-bound home,
to the barnacles, clams and the krill.
Down Counter’s Creek he steered,
stone faced past Neckringer Cove
heading south at Tyburn in pursuit
of his beautiful diamond-eyed maiden.
Now travellers talk of a ghostly ship
stuck fast in deep ice drifts,
of butterfly wings that lie untouched,
of a stranger who died for love.
She heard the tales and found him there
inclined against the mast,
then curled into his chilled embrace
and covered his face
with a thousand brittle kisses.

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