Emblem 98

Information and materials
Bait Shed

Square-corrugated sheeting
they use for industrial estates
has been cut into a shed that stands out
like a sawn up caravan
among wooden improvisations.
This dwelling frames no view.
How you get into its dark matters:
a driftwood arbour,
with inflatable life-jackets
like large wine-skins
hung from stripped branches,
leads to a Romanesque
buffalo skull-arch over a door
horned with driftwood tusks.
The outside is dangerous with silence.
There are many people in there
and no one. Behind the shed
the shale cliff rises like a wave.

Bait Shed is part of a new collection of poems about the North Yorkshire coast between Filey Brigg in the South and Skinningrove in the North.  The poems were commissioned by Art Connections as part of their Extending Practice Celebrating Place series of commissions.  Bait Shed is part 3 of a three poem sequence of poems set at Port Mulgrave.