Tessa Ransford OBE, Hon.DUniv (Paisley), MA, Dip Ed Poetry Practitioner and Adviser 31 Royal Park Terrace, Edinburgh EH8 8JA, Scotland, U.K. Tel : 0131 661 1277 E-mail : wisdomfield@talk21.com

Black Seas Till all the seas run black thick with oil sludge with oil and clog to death with oil cormorants and gulls their livid staring eyes and beaks that turn to preen and taste their own slow-choking death. Till all along the coast in swarms the fish will die and all that lives on fish a burning sea a searing land a poisoned world by the hate we humans never fail to foster till we choke as we preen our blackened feathers.