English poem on seabirds and fashion

This video is called This Demise of Ice, eco poem. Live reading by Helen Moore at the Bath Poetry Cafe, Mission Theatre, Bath, January 2008.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

A Wake to the Kittiwakes During London Fashion Week

Wednesday 11 July 2012

by Helen Moore

A collage poem inspired by two articles juxtaposed in the Guardian [16.9.06]

Sprats are out this season
and Lerwick feels absolutely the new Cannes
now the North Sea’s turned Mediterranean.
This is how it looks:

gaunt forms,
breast-bones protruding,
they strut and posture against a fabulous cliff-edge location –

and it’s a muted palette:
Kittiwake white and grey
jostling Guillemot penguin suits,
with narrow neck-bands and those Cleopatra eyes,
o, and lots of retro ruffles,
feathers decidedly dishevelled.

An avian style of heroin chic,
it turns the spotters’ heads
as the chicks lose their grip,
and, like Naomi on platform heels,
totter
and slip –

all
the
way
to double zero,
body-mass stripped,
make a splash where no flash-bulbs ever venture.

Helen Moore is a poet based in Frome, Somerset. Her work has been published in various anthologies and journals, including Magma, The Wolf, PAN (Philosophy, Activism, Nature) and Emergency Verse (The Recusant). She has also been guest poetry editor and honorary poet in residence for Resurgence Magazine. Regularly performing her poetry at events and conferences around Britain, Moore also works as a children’s author, community artist and Forest Schools practitioner. This poem is from her collection Hedge Fund, published by Shearsman.