Finn Brooke: ‘Flammarion’, ‘The Keeper’s Dream’, ‘The Sea Looks After Its Own’ and ‘The Street Without Drums’

Flammarion

If that engraving caught your mind’s eye,
making you doubt, somehow,
both starlight and sky,
then perhaps you can find him
this side of the firmament still,
in that little bar on Rue De Lambre,
where he met the muse
who would guide his hand,
one rare and wild night,
where she set the flaming wheels
of eternity spinning in his mind,
when she leant into him
whispering wonders,
her smiling lips letting slip
all creation’s secrets.

Finn Brooke

The Keeper’s Dream

The lighthouse keeper’s dreaming,
no ships, no storms, no waves,
no gales, no clouds, no surging tides,
no rocks, no reefs, no caves.

Just a cabin in a clearing
on a lake’s silent shore,
with a sun slowly sliding
from the ceiling to the floor.

With wood smoke and pine scent
twisting through the air,
with the promise of a distant dawn,
cool and calm and clear.

Finn Brooke

The Sea Looks After Its Own

All in all, things were looking dicey
for the last few lobsters in the tank
of the first-class galley on D-Deck.

The king and queen were long gone,
removed and dispatched to be served with
Heidsieck Gout Americain Champagne.

The royal guard had been routed,
scooped out of the water yesterday,
claws clacking ineffectually.

When today’s lunch and dinner service
took the rest of the brightest and best,
their small world was a bleak place to be.

But the high priest never lost hope
and shortly before midnight his prayers
were finally answered by an iceberg.

The sea always looks after its own,
he could be heard saying, years later,
at award dinners and jubilees.

Finn Brooke

The Street Without Drums

If only the hundred and thirty of Hamelin
missing now seven hundred years,
had found their way home
to their hearths and beds
and put an end to their parents’ fears.

If only the hundred and thirty of Hamelin
never heard that haunting tune,
and spent their morning
playing in the sun,
to return in the afternoon.

If only the hundred and thirty of Hamelin
seven centuries and silent still,
had burst from the cave,
shouting and sprinting
down the side of Koppelberg Hill.

Then laughter would ring in the Saxony air
through city and forest and glade
and Saxony drums would still sound out
on the street where no music is played.

Finn Brooke