portland views  by Rg Gregory  wherever there's a tear in the
fabric around weymouth; portland appears  from abbotsbury hill
it's just a long thin line humped at one end  closer (from
chesil beach) a head-on massive lump of rock gnashed by the sea
if you stand at sandsfoot castle there's a military feel; an
armed guard  of an island harsh with prisons snarling with
secrets visitors don't probe  but on the road up out of town
towards the east a different spirit  rides inland over caravans
and hedges especially in soft light  portland softens like a
pear in syrup (yearning to be consumed)  elsewhere at other
times it broods a sleeping lion its paw upon  the carcase of its
prey; but look at portland if you can by night  its outline
traced by street lights its harshnesses seduced to  shadows;
then the island hangs beneath the sky in still festivity  its
truths intact its wounds of stone find blessing in the herbal
dark  nothing of this of course is meaningful unless inside us
all there rests  a portland ravaged