Simon MacCulloch

Sixth Sense 

“Reality is only to be apprehended by the imaginative faculty.” - Arthur Machen, “True Comfort”

A pale blue above and a deep blue below
The sky meets the sea at horizon
A line ruler-straight, which will bend like a bow
And curve to a circle the higher you go.
A question of viewpoint - what more can you know
Of things that you fasten your eyes on?

The vast endless sigh of the ocean in swell
Surrounds, not retreating, not nearing
Entrancing the mind with its whispering spell.
The ocean? Or only the coil of a shell?
The mind’s facile guesses are all you can tell
Of things that impinge on your hearing.

That’s salt in the spray, in your sweat, not a doubt!
By poking your nose or your tongue in
You might get an inkling of what lies about
Though often as not it’s polluted, drowned out 
By spices from lunchtime, whose odours still sprout
From mucus their molecules clung in.

This bright tidal kiss in a sun-lapping spot
A pool among rocks, limpets clutching 
Is chill to the skin that the sand has made hot
But after the sea the sensation you got 
Was warmth, so reality clearly is not
A thing you can measure by touching.

The hints to which senses attempt to respond
May never reveal the full story.
Perhaps it’s a trick and you’ll always be conned
A dupe of the waves of the sorcerer’s wand
But still, a horizon, and still, just beyond
The sense of a secretive glory.



Simon MacCulloch has published hundreds of poems in a variety of outlets, including literary, academic, genre, humorous and religious publications. He lives in London. His Lovecraftian sonnet sequence, The Eyes of Azathoth, is published by Jackanapes Press.