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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Christopher's Collected Works Website

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

Available on Amazon

Christopher's Collected Works Website

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

Available on Amazon

Christopher's Collected Works Website

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

Available on Amazon

Christopher's Collected Works Website

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

Available on Amazon

Christopher's Collected Works Website