When the boat moves gently in the yellow crystal ripples

Side stare askance to the living light.

Stand off this leeward shore to see the crafty sun

Draw tight its golden prisms.

Space singed rays scoot on curling leaves

Then smear a lifting brush across the harbour sea.

View a single line of ebb turned shingle pressed

Towards a high-jacked copse of remnant forest trees.

Hold that sear of landscape before a gravel course

Of western hail whips the fooling velvet surface

Into a lacquered coats of dimpled films.

From the shed grey clouds white dot tines

In fluted sheets obscure the reclaimed fields.

A silvered flash through clearing shrouds stuns

A hawthorne bush to print a fleeting shadow mark.

This blacktailed tangle reaches for the ships

And morbid cranes and claws their metal frames

To sink beneath the greasy waves.

Ian Ellis Chandler,

Sholing, Southampton

Echo poet-in-residence Polly Clark writes: "Lots of description in this densely-packed poem.

"I really liked 'greasy waves' - a great image."

You can e-mail Polly on polly.clark@soton-echo.co.uk