I dream of flotsam
and the child’s ocean;
Africa’s branch worn smooth
by the spin of the sea,
rolling through the troughs
until the breakers
lay it upon the cold sands
of England’s autumn,
with crisp leaves edging through
the fine grip of shell crystal
to meet the ancient log.

And my stick thrown back,
which I carried across the rock pools
and cast into the lifting sea,
watching its rhythm settle
into the bob and sway
that would nudge it on,
along the white river
which the moon lays
between the depths and heights
of the borderless marine night
until it arrives, like a thought, at its great future.

Sean Dagan Wood

Seán grew up in some fields on the island of Anglesey, and now lives in Manchester. His poetry has been published in a number of magazines, and he has read at various literature events in Manchester. As a teenager he was runner up in the Poetry Society’s Young Poet of the Year Award and more recently, won first prize in the JBWB Summer Poetry Competition 2007, as well as having a poem Highly Commended in the Yeovil Prize 2007. One of his poems was selected for display in Urbis Gallery in Manchester city centre as part of the 2006 Noise Festival exhibition – a showcase of the best young creative talent in the country. Seán has a first class honours degree in English and Creative Writing and works as an editor for Flame Books. He is currently working on his first novel and also writes music reviews, which have been published in print, online, and used by artists’ management.

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About the author

Loma-Ann Marks
Loma was a performer and freelance writer before becoming a journalist on the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star and Express. She's the Founder and Editor of Culture Compass. North, South, East or West? I'll go anywhere. I like to think that I'm a pretty good map reader ( not everyone would agree ) but then I remind them that I navigated my way around the Paris one-way system with NO mistakes. High Class or Common or Garden? High class in the garden. Clothes or Culture? Culture in new clothes. My best night out ever made me feel....... That things would never be the same again. And they surely weren't the following day.

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