There’s a poem in this, I’m certain,
the memory came while reading
the curtains
parted into the hearts of other poets:
a summer evening
sea swim alone below the flower tree
of antipodean Christmas’.
I’d kicked it . all . drugs and mothers, but
the sugar; I’d quit my full-time work
making either bread or circuit boards
or ice cream, and had opted out
of the woman’s vehicle
to walk it home instead.
I’m building a stronger sole, I said
using the splintered ice cream stick
to pick my teeth.
I’d been going barefoot everywhere
on everything, everyday.
I hadn’t talked awhile, or walked
for long the red Sumner cliffs
and then-standing township
when I saw the tide risen to a level
I didn’t know achievable.
I didn’t know myself entirely, either,
and daily seemed to fluctuate
between the two amygdala.
I was coming right, tho’, I’d jumped
from a moving vehicle, rolled
to a running trot, and while having
made adjustments
to the gutsong solo & the sole,
having cleared my private aerial
what I then picked up —ethereal
offering-sorts, terrestrial Focus groups…
I’m not the kind sitting up the front
taking notes, never did my homework
properly either, but… what I got back
didn’t put anything in place
of myself— where ever I turned
I was facing the front.
so there it was, the simple sand
-coloured sea, right up to the path
below the trees, and I stripped off
to my cut short polypropylenes
red and green, and let it hang in water,
peak tide meeting up the estuary,
a river curve, a rip beside, shallow water
beach wide, weird respite from feeling
all the gravity involved magnetically
to holding solar systems apart
floating loose in public near the footpath.
Yes, Mark, quite accurate…know more..and no more!
interesting, these meanderings of the Self. There’s tension between the desire to connect, and to disconnect, I feel. But whatever – great writing