Long Foreshore Poems
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I come to this little cove often -
no work, I have time to burn.
See Asians plunder its foreshore,
I still fish - show no concern.
Red-bill seagulls fly in circles,
fight over scraps they have won.
Never giving a thought to Icarus
who flew too close to the sun.
Soon a woman wanders over
and asks me what I’ve caught.
I tell her nothing yet but “you’d
be a great catch” I thought.
I know the swallows smirk at me,
my appearance they detest.
I cast my line and ignore them
(or at least I do my best).
Things start spinning in my head
like what it’s like to drown.
Did King Neptune sit on a throne
and did he wear a crown?
I come alone to this place often
to remember and reflect.
A place of beauty and meaning,
a place where I can forget.
Written: 1992
———
Ladder Bay is a sheltered cove in
the northern beaches of Auckland
New Zealand not too far from my
home in the East Coast Bays.
Despairing seafaring..can be
Lore of days of yore
Glories or gory
Bold stories told
Foreshore folklore
Hemingway’s…Old
Man and the Sea
Smiles..feeling chipper
Like a wee nipper
Reeling in a ripper
Serious delirious skipper
No not a wee kipper
More like stealing Flipper (ah remember Flipper)
Sort of caught
Trials snort beguiles
Rather overwrought
Wiles & guile..fraught
Palaver..how they fought
All went iffy in a jiffy
This grouper.. a storm trooper
All came a cropper
Squiffy party pooper
Proper show stopper
The line snipped…then ripped
Pip gripped but it slipped
Flipper well flipped
Hadn't read the script
Skipped...Pip pipped
Tripped then quipped
Simply ill equipped
Despite his devotion
No delish fish
Dish wish delight
In the commotion..swish..
Dipped back into
The ocean it sipped
Ought to remember what
We’ve been taught
Unless it’s been bought
Down at the port
This is a sort of sport
Where nought could be caught
That’s why fishing
Isn’t just dispatching
Santa’s sea grotto
Matching motto hatching
“It ain’t called bloody Catching!”
When I think of my father my heart
starts beating in time with his 7 A.M.
footsteps on hardwood floors.
His image rests in the second chamber
of my heart. If I could shrink you
down and put you in there, you’d hear
the sharp, industrial twang of golf balls
alongside windblown, sun-wrecked dune reeds and shark
fins cresting the ocean’s ceiling.
My nose fills with scents of SPF 4
and scheduled coffee. Salt spray off
the foreshore permeates the air as he runs
up and down the neural pathways he forged
with white hot reaffirmations and ice cold habits.
If you were to run the needle over my
inherited, though painted skin, the music would
radiate in clouds of bookstore doorbells,
deafening sneezes and sports bar televisions.
This year I’m starting construction on a new
chamber in my heart; one just to hold
the memories of my father, a chamber filled
with the loud, consistent banging of beanbags on wood,
a chamber big enough for me to chase after
frisbees tossed with sixty-eight-year-old skill
most crucially, a chamber with integrity
enough to hold the blue, persistent flame
in focus long enough for me to light my own
cigarette, and smile as the smoke comes out.
The new room design has soundproof walls
and the door and locks are all fireproof,
withstanding flames as hot as the water my
mother uses to wash his greasy meatloaf pans.
It happens
as if stirred by some
deep prompting rising up
out of a common soul,
a voice in search of a language
to write its existence
across the pages
of a passing mind.
The soft morning light
pooling beneath hurrying feet,
the cypress trees
along the foreshore time frozen
in their wind bent posture,
the motion of waves
withering into a slow soak
up the beach -
all seem to have something
to say.
I have felt a pen press
upon my mind, struggle
to find a space free
from the cramp of my own self
on which to record
the shape and sounds
of a joy or give form
to a longing freed
from the grip of shadow.
I have felt the cry
of things trapped
in the hollows of words
like empty sea shells held
to the ear and tried faithfully
to transcribe what was said.
In my solitude I have
called out hoping
for a reply only to hear
the sound of my own pulse
punctuate a terrible silence
Forever won’t understand those who can’t stand sand between spanned toes
Clever bands of hourglass strands slows & then through fanned hands flows
Whatever woes foes weather throws our duty never this beauty booty forgoes
Skilled kids build guild of silica Basilicas in a row the sea rids closes in overthrows
Waves then mow rave to & fro saline scarves pave new paths the ocean bestows
Commotion heightened emotions brightened notions enlightened its potion glows
Kaleidoscopic schools of iconic rock pools colours flock shock as almost tropic
Views & hues don’t falter just alter won't halter as an altar to ease those blues
Tidal tows doze then rose grows tease with unctuous but rambunctious blows
A beach can preach beseech as each single shingle does mingle in a stony knoll
Seaside stroll as sea gulls glide white caps roll & ride then a lull soothes the soul
Flattered Neptune’s role shattered shells scattered or is it Poseidon’s control
Webbed ranks of ebbed sandbanks lapped by lullabies our own private atoll
Thanks for phalanx of mirth & pranks from mother nature’s glimmering vaults
Shimmering seals leave their berth heave their girth then those crests do surf
Dolphins fins spin big grins senses halts & assaults with immense somersaults
What riffs could be a good as being stood in a neighbourhood of driftwood
Whiffs of whimsy as swells rollick for shells we fossick our elemental tonic
Cliffs adorn scars of scorn by time foreshore gentry stands sentry well worn
Don't mourn as from dawn till dusk forlorn foresworn somehow feel reborn
Sniffs sublime seaweed frolic fish like stars sunbeams & daydreams bucolic
"Into the Ultramarine"
barefoot along the path down to the beach
the memories follow me like seagulls
either side the honour guard of scarlet coastal banksia
and the sharp green scent of Bribie Island pine
wave over me
The wide expanse of a life
like the wild side foreshore
now vastly eroded,
the space between, much shorter
the tides in time
have taken
the sands further out
dissolving the childish past
past the dissolving
further out
the Ocean deep
calls me further in
shedding skin
like a Selkie
diving head first
bare feet the body slippery
into the Ultramarine
the Ultramarine
like a possessive lover
takes me
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Learning from various nefarious vermin Hermanns
Discerning the trigger bigger the lies fascism will rise
Spoof uncouth aloof truths won’t even try & disguise
Shermans embers burning remember the Germans
Trump encore will ensure war waged at every door
Implore more what ifs will only see the tariffs soar
Saluting Tangerine and Putin settling their score
Polluting & looting the pure Greenland foreshore
Highfalutin thugs shrugs who deplore rule of law
Russians again crushing Prussians not like before
Developing countries know it will kill the poor
Should we still call this the “Third World” War
Everything tanks in the Yanks new Wild West
China gives EU a shiner from their US diner
Deranged climate change zest was the true test
Damn it the planet we knew’s over & laid to rest
A butterfly's flight,
Lost in the foreshore of the night;
With tears in her eyes,
She hung from the trees and cried.
Her gaze met mine,
And in that moment, we intertwined;
With the moonlight as our guide,
She sang and spread her wings wide.
She fell from the trees,
Onto the water, as gentle as a breeze;
It seemed she had lived for eons,
As her wings glimmered like precious stones.
I touched them with grace,
And in that touch, I found my place;
For in the foreshore of the night,
Her peace and melody took flight.
As the night draws to a close,
And the shelter of dreams fades and goes;
The touch of her wings,
And the tranquility in her sings.
Forever in my soul,
Without fail, her beauty unfolds.
Setting sun carved a path over the Humber
From Hessle right across the river bend
To join the banks at Ferriby Foreshore
Where that path came to its end.
The great smelter chimney
Rising there darkly up high
Sent its stream of carcinogenic smoke
Crawling across the reddening sky.
The resident old transvestite man,
Beach combing the bank for wood
Let the small boat he pulled drift so it
Crossed the path from where I stood.
To my rear the Bridge dominated
Striding the river from side to side
Then the longest in the world
With its span totalling a mile wide.
That strange mixture of past and present
Not there to be seen anymore
For the smelter was pulled down
And taken to pollute a foreign shore;
And the old man in his strange garb?
Not even sure if he’s still here.
I’ve not walked that old path
For far too many years.
But the bridge, now second biggest,
Still spans the waterway
Carrying the road’s traffic
Day after day after day.
A hush in the gathering darkness.
Fading to silence bird song.
And as the sun lowered to earth
My scarlet path was gone.
not a bone to pick on beach walks
with my lover just pleasure and leisure
strolls in the sand of time and togetherness
joined at the hips of mind body and soul
sizzling fingertips and footsteps near the edge
of the water crested in undulation
two people one wavelength
vital force and universal calling
treading a path of happy destiny
every now and then we find a fossilised form
minute skeleton small reminder
that permanence does not exist
of the past being bygone
and the future yet to come
as long as life grants us more hours
sometimes there is a bit of amber to be found
majestic tree sap for jewellery and ornaments
treasure gems and relics of measured meter
and the wonderful presence of nature
resonating resin if fortune is kind
occasionally a fish gnawed to the bone
by a seagull like Jonathan Livingston
its meaning as melodious as a Bach symphony
while our strides become a concerto in themselves
the saunter resembles a poem
quietly recited without words
simply flowing to the sound of the waves
of synaesthetic delight with sea stars’ applause
to the magnificent galactic power of
sun moon and stellar composure
sorrows melt away with each further step
the foreshore fuses between our toes
as the covered bones print a trail
washed away by tidal command
gratitude humility love and compassion
truly not a bone to grind with each other
blessed by a union made in heaven and beyond