Arcish

Between the string of floats
Where the sand is certain
Each step one step further
Each line of sunlight
Makes the water ever warmer
One bamboo shade
In line with one hundred others

What was lost is found
What was found is lost
An unbroken curve
The horizons
Very own iteration
Yet I have no implements
For measurement
Either by degree or distance

Although I would say
That there is very little here
To support the point of view
Of the flat earth society
Who would do well
To construct a formula
For such an infinite curve

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Forgetful

My sunglasses are in the bathroom
I am in the beach cafe
There are stairs
And a lift between us

The lost money is now found
Safely placed in the safe
The test, if test it was, is over
I hope my response was proportionate

Already you are out to sea
Also yesterday
The boat trip to snorkel
With diving planned for Saturday

I will drink the Coca-Cola Zero
Then take a black Americano coffee
Watch the slight waves
Blow right to left

As if in a Chinese script
(Inscrutable to everyone)
Except perhaps yesterday’s captain
Smoking his continuous cigarettes

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Maslow’s First Two Rungs

Could we not live
If not living here
Could we not be
Just to be

With what hope
With living near
There to see
How just to be

Yet if not here
Nor even nearby
The line
Could still be drawn

For would we not live
If not living here
Would we not
Give it our best shot

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Time Shared

I would not
Write this
Without you

I would not
Be here
Without you

By this pool
By this sea
In this swish hotel

I would not write
Of the many blues
Of the oceans

I would not write
Of the sheer clarity
Of the sky

On this island of Rhodes
In this country
Of Greece

I would not
Write this
To confound you

I would not
Write this
Unless found by you

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Focus; Elsewhere

Eight minutes is easy
Any more than that is quite an effort
Which requires mind games
To distract or delay
The onset of lack of concentration

If one could visualise
Then one would visualise
If one could meditate
Then one would meditate

But if all that one can be is restless
Then restless is what one has to be
Yet here
In a three-session concentration
One could so so easily fall asleep

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Place

The waiter knows how I progress
First a Coca-Cola Zero
Then, after penning a poem or two
It is time for an Americano, black

In this way
I have become a regular
Especially after
The diving lessons are concluded

The idyll
For idyllic it surely is
Arrived as my perfect destination
For which I am thankful

As soon as the crumb of cake
Lands on the sand
The sparrow swoops
To take it to a more private perch

Around the corner of the headland
A small cabin with a Swedish Flag
Or perhaps it is Greek or Argentinian
In any event it is blue with white

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Here

Where might those
Other worlds be
Where else might the sun
Bleach my auburn hair

How then not to simply be here
How not to be
So so continuously grateful
For the exclusive meditations

If only twenty-one was an option
Or thirty, or forty
Yet, how impatient
In those early years

Before turning turtle
And going back to college
To be taught The Poetics of Space
To study the poetry of human nature

Now to invest in the bodies
Of the beautiful people
To wonder, or wander
With a mind
Freed of all complications

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Locked In

I had to walk
In the water
I had to sit
On the rocks
I had to remember
Atrium Prestige this way
I had no need of escape
For I was here already
I had the space
The ambiance
The good feeling

Listen
You can hear the waves
Look
You can see the sky
Define the horizon
Feel, can you feel
As the breeze
Wisps your hair
As the shower
Washes your feet

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Trip

Lips kiss the walls
Stalls sell overpriced gowns
Down and down we go, into the town

Up and up some more
To the Acropolis
To the drop off bus terminus

Blacker than black
The thicker than treacle
Americano

Oh how blue your sea
Oh how clear your water
Oh how hot your sun

Seventeen stairs to step
Three floors in the lift
To sand and seawater

Splash of wave
Breath of breeze
Horizon far distant

As if to be
Is to be
Outside of my concentration

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Day

Today we go to the mountain
Today we go to the town
Today it is your birthday
And so I wish you all my love

I scour the water
I scour the sands
I scour for you everywhere
To wish you all of my love

I watch the divers
Beginning their lessons
I watch the animated couple
As I similarly wish you all of my love

Today the bougainvillaea
Today the dragonfly
Today the forces of nature
Turn to wish you all my love

I am embedded
I am grateful
I am mindful
That today I wish you all of my love

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Game

One man
And one more man
Are needed

This kind of pitch
This kind of attack
This kind of quality

Young man
And one more young man
Are imperative

This kind of day
This kind of summer
This kind of tomorrow

En ger land
En ger land
En ger land

This kind of music
This kind of conversation
This kind of usual debate

One man
And one more younger man
To free up this old man

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Wellbeing

Sunday afternoon
On the sun lounger
Listening to the cricket
Welcoming the breeze
As it gently arrives
Over our swim-up pool

I am thinking
Of the cotton on the bog
During our Ireland vacation
Thinking of that because of
The poet who wrote
Of bog and clay and mud

All as a part
Of absolute solitude
All as a function
Of deep translation
All as a quest
Of self-understanding

With wave after wave after wave
Beyond clay-tiled rooftops
Clay being
Where the working life began
Clay being
Where working life is no more

Blue after blue after blue
In ever decreasing shades
Blue being
Where the love of life began
Blue being
Where love of life carries on

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Coffee Bar Mornings

The first Diet-Cola of the day
Looking out to sea
The waiter asks if I am from England
Then adds London?

I say yes, but no
Then add; Lincolnshire
Fifteen minutes to the sea
Though on reflection I ought to have said:

Lincolnshire actually
Like the London poet
Reprimanded in his camper van
For going too slow in New York State

The breeze carries
The wave’s shimmers
Drift out to the horizon

Or perhaps the magnetism
At the tip of the surf
Attracts the zephyr winds

The guy with the cigarettes
Takes two cigarettes
In a casual, couples fashion

Was it such a good idea
All those years ago
To give up smoking
Also to cease conversation

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Contemplate This

And so you float
And I call it meditation
Yet that Thomas Moore
Talks of swimming
Or photography
Being good forms of meditation

I take photographs
Of your stillness
Of your peace
Of your calm

They will become memories
To decorate your past
Your present
And in your future
There to remind you
Of your affinity
With the salt-laden water

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Constructive

I hear the flames
I half-way witness
The sparks
Fly from the timber

I also feel the breeze
Across our private pool
Which itself
Sure is one pure indulgence

The geometric patterns
Of the eight limbs
Of the sunshine umbrella
Ask for my focus

That I should see
The main bearers
Among the mid bearers
Which support the canvas

Also that the Roman pillars
Should be a foundation
For the cross trusses
Which hold up the cantilever

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Either Way It’s Wrong

A blue sky moon
Our own infinity pool
With an outlook
Over clay tiled roofs
To the azure Aegean Sea

My father did not mean much to me
Apparently, as a boy in the family
That is not too too unusual
Yet here, on vacation
He strikes my imagination

Yachts with sails which lean
Towards the women
With their skimpy bikinis
Why wouldn’t you be
A carefree millionaire

Perhaps, because he had no support
Or money
He chose adultery
As one way out of his silence
One way into eternities of oblivion

The bodies sure are beautiful
In such relaxed warm winds
Where the big man smiles
And says good morning
On his way to the bar

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Observation Point

Out by the bamboo umbrellas
Already you are in the sea
As I sit in the shade
Drinking my Americano

The sea is blue
The sky is blue
The horizon is drawn
With pinpoint accuracy

To my left there is a mountain
In my head there is a song
All the day is almost open
As the crickets sing along

Do you swim
Or do you float
Or do you feel as I do
In the depths of meditation

Where do the waves take you
Where do you return to
Does the salt weigh heavy on you
Does the saline water support you

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Calm Storm

These are not the beautiful people
Although I half expect
That they would like to be

And, maybe back at home
Without such stiff competition
They may we’ll pass muster

My issue though is more with forgetfulness
I left my coat at home
I left my glasses in the bedroom

I believe it is difficult to swagger
In your sixties and your seventies
No matter how graceful you once were

I will swim in the sea tomorrow
It wouldn’t do to rush at it
Better to have gradual preparation

Instead I read my emails
Get angry at Virgin Media’s
Lack of response to my cancellation

I then determine, that actually
I cannot achieve much by being angry
Not in the sunshine or seas of Rhodes

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Hectic

By the water’s edge
Watching the paddle boat
Move from East to West
Or is it North to South

The waves lap the shore
No more energy than that
Is being expounded today

Soon I will go to the bar
Sit on a high stool
To drink strong coffee

But for now.
I will watch you swim
Through one blue line, then another

The arm swings
I want to say laconically
Yet there is a rhythm

I lose my concentration
My biscuit falls to the floor
I say, oh bugger

Then I reflect
This is one good place
There will be a new biscuit tomorrow

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Skills Base

The single yacht
Leans into the warm breeze
The sailors among you
May know a more technical term
But I am no sailor

I am a man of the land
Born as far away from the sea
As is possible
In this the county of my birth
As such it is true; I am no sailor

Instead as a single man
I tramped on the peat bog
The Pennine way walkers among you
May know older terminology
But I am no serious walker

I am a man of dreams
In the fullness of my mind
Psychologists among you
May know a more esoteric word
But I am no psychologist

Instead, as a teenager
I learnt a skilful trade
Tradesmen among you
May recognise the term indentured
But I left all that behind

The single yacht
Is no place for a walker
But it may be fine for a sailor
Or a man who dreams
Of a disengaged teenager

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First Base

Thousands of ants
Dozens of sparrows
The sun being up
Before we were up

White buildings
Blue blue sea
The day ahead
Already ahead of us

A small garden
With petals of flowers
The way out
Was also the way in back-along

I sit in the shadow
Out of the sun
I watch the haze
On the horizon

Not needing to beautify
Or make any more extravagant
This is the stillness, it is almost
Exactly what I was looking for

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Acreage

There is an abundance of apples, also a similar abundance of conference pears, on next door’s trees

We will have one more garden project; a summer house, with a sauna and hot-tub sounds to be quite a worthwhile task

Soon my mind runs away with me, should it be a log-built cabin, or a full-size stone bungalow

Which would mean splitting the garden in two, and selling off the house

How then to gain access do I hear you say; yes that is a conundrum which requires a good deal of investigation

But such is life is it not, c’est la vie

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Days And Confused

I could not find
A home in Gothenburg
The silent retreat at Sharpham
Clashed with football

I put the wrong date
On the writing group email
But the photograph
Of the frog by the pond was ok

Such a wonderful Tuesday morning
Sunshine in August
With Neil Young himself singing
Of the promise of a man

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Irritation

He saws wood
He burns wood
The residual aroma
From the timber
Permeates my room

He saws wood
He burns wood
The resonating sound
From the timber
Interred into my day space

He saws wood
He burns wood
My neighbours disquiet
Caused by the timber being laboured
Catches my empathy

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Pinch Points

I have found the shade
On the hottest day this year
I have found the solitude
Where the pond waterfall splashes
Where John Martyn’s music
Plays on the Bose speakers

I can see the many apples
On the many trees
I can see the few white roses
Fluttering in the breeze
I have found the circumstantial
To settle into a calm of simply being

Knowing; well, full well
That at some time during the day
I will find disturbance
Either from deep within
Or skilfully delivered
From further without

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