You trace the
stretch marks on my hips
with your fingertips
silently challenging me with your eyes to
keep still.
I have not the concentration or the will,
and my fingers
find their way into your hair,
pulling you closer
and closer to me.

Until

the only distance between us
is the invisible ocean dividing
our souls from one another,
A distance that cannot be crossed by a simple
mingling of breaths.

And yet, we persist in these attempts,
too stubborn to admit that we are both
beginning to tire of swimming.

I hate the beach
I'm eighty six and I hate the beach
Hate the sand, not a fan of the surf
Face it, I hate the beach
Last time I went there
I had just turned 18 years old
June sixth, Nineteen Hundred Forty Four
God, I hate the beach
I was in the 5th Regiment
Régiment de Maisonneuve
and I've never been to a beach since
I'm from Verdun, Quebec, Canada
Not many beaches around there
Thank the lord for that I say
We'd been training for six months
Operation Overlord it was called
We were coming in on troop carriers
It was to be a beach head landing
I'd never seen a beach before
At least not for real
Never want to see another
We arrived early June 6, 1944
I think I said that already
You must forgive me,
I'm 86 years old and I hate the beach
fourteen thousand Canadian Troops
Bursting out of armoured troop ships
Like, the young, virile, brahma bulls we were
Coming in, all I could hear was the waves
I was in front, well...close to the front
I remember, there were no birds
who ever heard of that?
A beach with no birds
At least not at this beach
I could smell the salt in the air
And I knew I could hear the surf
And my heart, I could **** well hear that
But, no birds, I couldn't hear the birds
Gunfire, nope...cannons and mortars
But birds and guns, not a sound
Weird huh?
I remember running forward
Always forward, past blocks
Wood barricades and barbed wire
And bodies, lots of bodies
I knew that I knew some of them
I just didn't have time to stop
And say goodbye,
I just ran
Emptied my weapon at least once
I only know this, because it was empty
when I hit the beach
God, I hate the beach
You know in the movies
or in those flowery books
where they talk about someone being shot
and how "there was a bloom or
they're chest flowered red where they were hit"
I never saw that, never looked back
Just ran forward, saw the "bloom" in their backs
Don't like red, or flowers or the beach
I don't remember much after that
Could still hear my heart
That's a good thing, I guess
I got tore up good with the wire
but I never got shot
Never, "bloomed" for anyone
A few of my buddies were lost
I toast them every year
Never at the beach though
I hate the beach
Wife and kids used to go
I never did, never will
I remember the 50th anniversary though
Wife and kids went back
Not me,
Went into Montreal to see a ball game
Montreal Expos 10, Houston Astros 5
I remember Will Cordero hitting a homer
It was the sixth inning, I toasted the hit
I thought about that day 50 years before
And went back to watching the game
I hate the beach
My name is Gilles Roquefort
I'm eight six years old
And I can still feel the sand and taste the salt
On a bad day.

Rising guano smokes the white birds.
The North winds homing, ave, a long
Besieging sea and ferries the prince
Of waves pass pacific and the fair isles.
With javelin eyes, aloft, blue streaks

The seething air, headlands draft
Grave embattlements, red rivulets
Paint on the raining wing, black art
Ticks the tern, marked minions and more
Dread.  Once you were a foundling

Dropped from sovereign doons, scree
Of sky, air of wizard, your image late
Spikes from the lake, taut talons train,
Your breast a speckled main, rapier
Of dreams, arisen, sheathed in stone.

In the frosts of autumn, leaves do tell
In storied colours, yellow and red,
Round the shores your kingdoms table,
Battle cries break, a silence of wails,
Though they fall they shall burn again.

Dark cloud, consort of the rain,
billowing, dense, phantasmagoric, apparition,
             shift--
                     make me a
                     foamy bed, to rest,
                     and a smoky lyre,
                      to make music,
                      give me wings,
                      for my imagination to soar,
                             find me my true love for ever-
                              the ****** white clad maiden of the cloud,
                                the starry eyed angel;
                                  just let me
                                         hover around
                                              with you
                                                       for ever.

From home in the morning,
I take the bus routinely
As often as the sun rises
Or as I, asleep, assume it rises
Behind the veil of Washington's overcast

But today I am awake for it all
And watch the caravan of I-5
Puttering in inches, billowing exhaust
As I imagine the dust kicked by as many oxen
All hoping to reach the Emerald City

But some of them don't make it
Or decide to settle elsewhere
Sometimes even my fellow passengers are lost
Perhaps they've gone to malaria or the pox
And I pray I'll see them again tomorrow

For when the sun goes down
Or I assume it does as my eyes close
We've drunk the waters of that Platonic river
That as far as I remember begins with an L
And, reincarnated, come back up as always