1)

A bright blade bites a lock
and four thugs burst into a room
where Bruce Fang lies with his favourite girl, Sue Ling.
She is accommodating him in The Bird Cage,
a seamy joint down near the river
where the sampan ply its treacly course
all night long. Fang snatches
a knife from his belt, then falls.
He'd just sobbed and sighed amid Sue Ling's
sweet dark thighs, and now the mob are after him.

He'd spread all his stolen trinkets
before her astonished eyes;
and, as shadows melted across a Chinese screen,
had turned to dream upon a quilt of printed
flowers, waking to the pre-dawn hours
before the door slammed down.
And now, as Sue Ling screams,
Fang collects a bullet in the brain!

The game is up for Fang: four punks stand,
three with hatchets, one with a smoking gun,
staring at the deed they've done; then dash
back to the night... Before the sound
of running feet dies along the empty street,
framed there in the doorway, glaring,
is their boss, Hank Kill. Built like a hearse,
big-boned, American, his eyes smouldering,
he walks to where the dead Fang lies
and takes from his pocket a strange device.
(It was for this he'd just killed Fang.
And for the same Fang had slain Lee Ching.)
"You don't know nothing," Hank mutters
to Sue Ling. "Now get out of here."
She flies into the night, her face once flushed
with joy now a lantern pale with fright.

Reader, it might seem trite to say this,
but the underworld is not the nicest place,
not squeaky clean but crude, and like my first
three verses, more than a little lurid: such is vice!
So those fastidious ears I have offended
in these preceding lines should not harken
further to this poem. Nor should those who
care only for conventional sense;
for any stray conceit, I warn, here may trot
or gallop down the courses of my plot.
Lee Ching shot, the knife for Fang! So what
was that thing plucked by Hank Kill
from Fang's bloodstained pock't?
It was a sort of sprocket made of glass,
apulse with fire and tiny dials.
Hank Kill turns it in his hand and smiles,
and into his eyes streams a sinister silver light.

Now some men care for love and some for fame
and some go lame pursuing some mad sport
such as lacrosse or table tennis.
But Hank Kill was not the outdoor type
nor an egoist. For all his days
he had only cared for lucre,
and the filthier won the better.
Lately he had intercepted a letter
sent via a stooge from Bruce Fang to his wife.
This letter told how Lee Ching saved the life
of a certain Dr Lee, and how he, Bruce Fang,
was told of it while drinking with Lee Ching.
Dr Lee was that man who won the Nobel Prize
for inventing light-emitting robot eyes
that allowed those metal men to see through walls.
He had followed this invention with another,
which Hank Kill now holds in his hand:
a 'tidal sprocket' which, if you set its dials so,
tilts the moon a few degrees off orbit
- and makes the sea convulse with monster tides!

Dr Lee had raved of it last spring
that day Lee Ching fished him from the Mekong.
Lee Ching had been walking by its banks
when he'd heard a splash, and had dashed
to where a hand grasped straws above the swirl.
That hand belonged to Dr Lee, who had been cruising
with others of the scientific ilk, aboard a barge,
before - tragedy! Tripping over a chicken
tethered to the bow, Lee had fallen in the drink.
But he 'came to' again upon the river bank,
rescued by Lee Ching. "tied round my neck gasp
is a pouch," Lee, shivering with delirium, said.
"Inside you'll find my tide device-gasp-sprocket,
all together one world where we'll all be free-
gasp-no more famines for the future-choke-
the waters take me down you see-choke-gasp-
I don't have long to last-gasp-do you hear
take it take it-gasp-the desert sands will bloom again
but if it falls to evil hands-choke-why with this..."
Little does he know that Lee Ching is a thief,
who cuts the cords around the Doctor's neck
and throws him back into the muddy swirl.

Imagine Dear Reader, you are in your office among the clouds,
while other towers of steel and glass rise up around you,
above the city streets where pedestrians mill, below.
In the sky outside, aeroplanes fly with a luminous
drone, while you answer the phone and scribble
on a blotter, doing things other office workers do.
But suddenly you see in the blue out there
a huge white liner drifting serenely past.
You can't believe your eyes, and why should you?
Where air should be, now is water, rising to the 20th floor.
Goldfish swim where traffic lights once punctuated
the daily din with green and red and amber.
And that hamburger stand beside the new gymnasium
looks more like an acquarium. And there! A vast shock
of water swirls where tickets once curled
upon the windscreens of parked cars.
It's like some mad dream of Captain Nemo's.
Someone must have tampered with the tides!

The tidal sprocket in malevolent hands?
Instead of desert lands blooming with new life,
Instead, this? Yes! Hank Kill's fist
slams down as his Lear Jet veers over Acupulco.
Slam! against a sink set in the wingside bar
where he's just upset the drink of his dumb
henchman Waldo: a Harvey Wallbanger, double-iced.
"With this we'll be rich," Hank booms,
holding the sprocket high against the light.
"Or that is, we'll be richer," he amends
with an evil growl. "I'll put it up for auction
and anyone who pays the highest price
can have it." The jet tilts through a cloud
above the dazzling beaches of the rich.

Enter then, Baba Ganoogh, chef and chief accountant,
with a tray of quail held high... A lean, sardonic
man, eyeing narrowly the world. A silken
tassle twirls atop his fez, which sits upon a head
that's very good with sums and sauces,
although his heart is numb, like his boss's;
he knows no more mercy than a mantis.

2)

"I must have come too far," she thinks
and she is right. For there is no life
near the slender ledge of ice where we find her,
but only blizzards swirling above a blue crevasse
and icicles which drip frost onto her tent.
Inside it, she eats a meal of beans
then dreams of pancakes and roast beef,
and of the smiling faces of her friends.
She calls them softly in her sleep then
dreams again, of a silver teapot steaming
inside a cabin, by a sunny stream in Spring.
Outside, fingers more of frozen light
than ice point into the wild white sea.
The huskies howl against the storm
covered in cold sleet, all lie huddled
in their warmth as the blizzard blooms,
until the 'midnight sun' looms again,
flaring on the new horizon.

The next 'morning' finds Clair treading
her first footsteps in the snow, as he
turns the team around and heads for home.
But the ice cracks like a whip when she steps
onto the lip of an aching blue crevasse; she
falls! Her only hope the rope around her waist,
which snakes out quickly then catches on a stake
she has also hitched the huskies to. It springs
and shudders to take her weight, then
starts to inch and jerk from its
shaky anchor in the ice. Clair swings
in a wild arc while, down below, amid the roar
of falling snow, she sees sheer vistas
of an airy nothing: a reeling, delirious view
that knocks the stuffing from her heart.
Wait, her hand now finds the rope
she hangs upon and, against all hope,
she starts to climb it back towards the slope.
But, with a ping, that stake flies
from the ice, and she flings
one piercing scream into the void.

Again! The rope slams taut about her waist
as the stake jams in the husky sled,
which also slips towards the chill abyss.
A near miss for Death and then another chance
for him to clutch her in his bony fingers.
Yet, it's not too late. For her husky team
throw off their docile doggy dreams,
wakening to the danger that awaits them, too.
They set their padded feet against a ledge
and strain against the weight that drags
them down. And, doing so, also raise
Clair free from the bleak crevasse.

But the dogs are in a panic, their eyes
are wild, their howls nip at the heels of night.
Clair twists on the rope behind them,
a thing of flung flesh. The dogs drive on,
dashing over hills of ice that twinkle
in the twilight. Clair's mind cuts to black
as endless sheets of snow stream past.
At last, the dogs slow down, padding
through a fissure in the ice where,
the panic fading from their eyes,
they slump into the frost and rest.
Big Red licks Clair's face, but she doesn't stir -
clinging closer to his shaggy warmth
that in the silver chill means life.
Later, Red's face still nuzzles up to hers.
He whines slightly as she finds her feet.

All about the Arctic light glows a ghostly blue:
Wolf, and Big Grey also, begin to whine.
Clair's jaw drops when she looks
where their muzzles point. A shape looms
in a fissure to her right and, in the gloom,
seems to move toward her. What? A mammoth
buried in this tomb of ice for eons? Yes.
And now his eyes drink in the light,
the first time for twelve thousand years.
Clair trembles like a little snowflake
as tilting back his massive head
he trumpets one sweet and piercing note.
For everything he looks upon he loves.
"She has freed me. I must serve her,"
such he might have said if he could talk.
Then, uncoiling the trunk between his horns
without a second's warning, he plucks Clair
from the snow and puts her down upon his back.

Two months later, Clair, mammoth-mounted,
nears the lights of Nome. Plodding through
the snow, 'the living fossil' hauls her sled
where Big Red and the other dogs now ride.
Each huge stride carries her further down
back streets, where nothing stirs at four a.m.
A prehistoric trumpet blasts the skies
and townfolk turn their houselights on.
All around her dogs are barking,
people prod the air with disbelief,
but Clair just longs for sleep and food.
Soon, the town blazes with her story,
it startles all who hear it,
like that enterprising local sheriff
who calls Anchorage to tell the nation's press.
Impressed, with this first sniff of news,
they fly up camera crews, arc lamps,
plus reporters who demand instant interviews.
The next day MAMMOTH GIRL makes page one.

Clair's face stares up from the Times as smoke
curls from Hank Kill's cigar, below the rafters
of his mansion in Madrid. A man little caring for that
which fails to bring him instant profit,
even he had raised an eyebrow as he read the news.
Had he read more, not just perused the headlines,
he would have learned how Clair, an expert
on the migratory flight of birds, had been
honored for her amazing find, which was
now in a Quebec Zoo where, daily,
the curious queued to view it. Also, how Clair
was "going back to work" upon her thesis
on the Blue-beaked Fidgit Bird. But Hank just
blows another 'noose' of smoke into the air.
What does he care for some overgrown moose?
His mind is now occupied by Darker Thoughts.

Hank's mansion in Madrid is set above the sea
with sheer cliffs on one side, the other fenced
with electrified barbed wire. A guard holds
a vicious dog at bay as he patrols the night
where all is quiet underneath a silver moon.
Its bright light bathes a gravelled drive
that leads up to a high steel gate
at the entrance to the Kill estate.
Here are guards also, machine guns underneath
their arms, waiting in the silent cool of evening.
Inside his Blue Room Hank is also waiting,
playing Snap with Waldo, his private goon.
Hank snarls to him, "Get me a drink!"
Then to his accountant, "What do you think?"
Ganoogh, pausing from the massive tank
of colored fish that forms a feature wall
is a malevolent figure dressed in velvet
flocked onto a paisley pattern,
his face set in low relief against the muted
lighting of the room. "Very soon, he will be here."
Then, fingering the tassle of his fez: "Yes,
I'm sure he'll meet our price. I have it
on good advice he has the means..."

His words are cut off by the crackling
intercom above the door. "Front gate sir,
I see the light!" Words which give no hint
of a guard's sudden transformation into
a model citizen. He merely sees
approaching cars. We watch them also, purring
through the gate and down the drive.
A white Rolls, followed by a train of armoured
vans. Hank runs a gold-ringed hand along
his jaw and smiles. "Waldo, get the door,
if there's any sign of a double cross...
The operation should be neat, no wasted words.
Baba, you mind that I'm not cheated."
"Sir it will be done," Ganoogh discretely nods.
For tonight Hank intends to make the sale.

...To Ibn Amad, arms dealer, who is so
enamoured of the tide device he's offered
to meet Hank's price, in gold, before
Kill finds other interested parties from
among Earth's scum. For Hank has
been 'talking to the shadows', hinting of
a super weapon, casting in dark waters
(as it were) for offers, and holding up
a dream of total power, as bait.
But cunning, shrewd, is Ibn Amad.
He knows Hank owns a secret weakness:
for gold, in bullion form, in yellow
blocks, or spun in chains, gold in thick
bracelets, or stamped with the heads of kings
in small round coins. Gold spilling
through the gaudy light of Hank Kill's dreams.
Ibn has conjured a delirium of bright,
buttery bullion, and Hank reaches a quick decision.

3)

Clair's eyes are red, a muscle tics
above her jaw, as she pauses over charts,
practising her ornithological arts
all the wee hours. As she does so,
Fidgits wing above a distant ocean,
their beaks tipped with its brine. But wait!
They are not flying in boomerang formation,
but one more pretzel-shaped. Clair checks
her latest calculations. Could it be?
She stares down at the page. Yes,
truth's music swells through
the blue din of her statistics!
Her heart leaps, eyes widen in surprise:
it could only mean one thing: Holland!
Holland! To be hit by monster tides!

Clair's knuckles whiten 'round the 'phone
as a voice from Amsterdam drones on...
"No, we haven't raised a public panic,
we had hoped the tides would fall.
Measures? Yes, yes of course...
We have shored up all the dykes
and have posted extra crews..."
Clair's head nods to the gloomy news.
"Can you be here soon... yes yes...
there may be something you can do.
What's that? Saturday? Then fly!
Of course we will assist you...
Goodgod...then goodbye."
Clair packs her bags and Fidgits,
rushing to the airport in a spin.
Over Spain she reviews her thoughts,
which all point to the moon. "That's it!"
she grins as a clue sparks in her brain.

The day is bathed in a grey Dutch light
and streets are hushed below an office suite
where the Chief of Police presides.
His mouth is creased, his eyes are grave,
handing Clair a note above his desk.
She reads: "By now you would have noticed
that the tides are rising fast; as rise
they will, ten times higher, until
all Holland drowns. I control the device
that does this. And only I can stop it,
if you pay my price. And what fair ransom
for your country? A paltry tonne of gold.
To be taken to the Tunis Star, now berthed
at Kliebald Port, and sailing soon to Libya,
where it will be intercepted by my men."
Signed: "A friend." "More like a fiend,"
says Clair, eyes flaring as she takes
a wire cage from underneath her skirt.
Inside it, two tame Fidgits peep and chirp -
but not for long. Out they fly now,
through an open window, into the mild air.
And, "beep beep beep," transmitters on their feet
send a steady signal back to Clair.
"If they veer from Nature's course," she says
"it will give an instant fix on
the device that is causing all of this!"

As veer they do, towards the town of Grod,
followed by Clair who leads a motorised
police squad. But not so fast! One of Ibn
Amad's spies posted on the outskirts of
that town (known for the redness of its
tulips) has lowered the glasses from
his eyes to tip his master off.
Ibn's smile chills the air inside his loft
above the Amad Jam Works outside Grod.
"How could they know!" he spits,
then snatches at the sprocket, setting dials.
The night is quite along the coast,
although the moon is worried in its orbit:
the sea runs in a silver light and all is still
- except for that massive wall of water, spilling
along the Grod Canal towards the small Dutch town!
Ibn frowns, a motor coughs, blades flash as
a helicopter lifts above the roof: a bright
red insect abuzz above the moonbathed night.

Vroomph! Clair's Fidgits, winging over Brod
are sucked into the copter's air intake!
The motor coughs, stalls, kicks, stops,
repeats a broken beat, its rotor blades,
once blurred, now tilt against the light.
Ibn frowns and tries to glide down;
his face breaks in a sweat. Blades
bite air in one final surge of power,
but it's too late! The copter crashes
on its back, its pilot's thrown to ground.
Flames scorch the air behind him as he
stumbles to his feet; the stricken
insect's fuel tanks flare with growling light
then detonate across the quiet of the night.
Back in his loft above the Works, Ibn tries
to calm his mind. "Keep cool keep cool," he thinks,
"there must be some way out," pacing back
and forth above a din of tin-plate
being flattened into cans, then filled
with jam, along assembly lines of this
outpost of the Amad empire.

Back on the highway, a giant wall of water
gains on Clair. Frothing in the mirror,
it also strikes the Police Chief numb with fear.
Clair slams her foot down hard upon the gas
and a rural landscape liquifies with speed.
Her motor snorts, car scortching over blacktop.
Clair grits her teeth and throws it round a bend
dust spurting from her tyres which, squealing,
bite hard on bitumen. Then once again her car
is a bright blue bullet fired down the highway.
But the water's gaining, picking off the convoy
car by car, until Clair's car is the last,
her motor straining with each bit of grunt
she pushes out of it. And then - she's hit!
The world spins upside-down and crazy in
a cross-whipped chaos at all sides.
Clair's car is catapaulted high into the sky!

And there we leave it, flying through
'the blue' towards the Amad Jam Works...
Inside, Ibn hatches strategies to save his skin.
He has set the sprocket once again,
arranging for a second wave to intercept the first.
Now, two walls of water burst together,
checking thus the onward rush of each,
and leaving just a mass of swirling slush
where once had been disaster.

Crash! Clair's car rips through the roof,
bursting with a blue cascade of glass
into Ibn's hideout. He sits stunned, as Clair
leaps through the shattered air at him.
"That's it! See, the sprocket round his neck!"
(Years before, Dr Lee had talked of his invention
when he and Clair had enjoyed a brief flirtation
after the Fifth World Moon And Tide Convention.)
Clair grabs it from his neck. The villain's spell
is broken. As he dashes to the door, Clair
picks an empty bottle from the floor,
meaning to bean him with it.

High on a catwalk Clair has cornered Ibn,
below them both a boiling vat of jam.
He swings onto a ladder and climbs towards
the roof, stopping when the rungs run out
above a grate. His razor eyes
survey the scene below, where steam pipes
hiss into the fitful light. And there!
A hand-hold beckons in the gloom,
above a doorway leading to the night.
Climbing ever higher, Clair still after him,
as he leaps into the air to save his life.
But that air is torn by screaming,
then torn and torn again, as he swings
like a gibbon in the gloom. His hands have
found a hold, but grasp in vain: that pipe
is full of super-heated steam! Clair screams
also, as something plops into the vat below,
then rises to its surface, very slowly.

Clair may have saved the world, but not Holland.
Don't forget the rising sea which (thanks to Ibn)
is bursting all its banks. From horizon to
horizon, tidal waves converge on Grod.
The power of the sea unleashed! And each
wave reaching out for Clair. They crash together
at her feet, and swirl into the sky and higher
in a giant waterspout: a blue upspinning jet
that pushes past the clouds. The top half,
spinning faster, sheers off from its base.
And gaining pace, escapes the grip of gravity,
and streams out into space. Clair circles
at its centre in a bubble of trapped air.
Her thoughts float in slow motion amidst
the dancing light, and every moment of her life
is now relived. Voices from the past
whisper close to her and then are still.
Chill light from vanished suns
whitens walls of ice as her tomb
spins into interstellar Night.
Light years later, it melts
above a world in Cygnus Alpha.

And so now is fulfilled that ancient
lore of the Scatchi Indian tribe:
That a squaw with yellow hair
and skin as white as milk
would learn the secret of the sacred
Fidgit, and save the tribes of Earth.
That she would ride the ice-furred
beast and release the water's power.
Then would she be the first of Earth
upon that star that shines above
the tepee, in the first moon of the
winter dawn. And then would meet
a man with silver eyes. And to them would
be born a son, graceful as the slender
Spruce, who would also know the use of fire.
And how he would bring his tribe
to the brink of ruin and glory, and how...
But that, Dear Reader, is another story.

John Jenkins