From my new book, Poems of Ancient Rome and Greece, available in paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as eBook on Kindle, Nook, and Apple Books:  https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Ancient-Greece-Christopher-Saitta/dp/B0DS6933HB?ref=astauthor_dp  

My mother the sea,
She woke my sandy eyes,
Just to tell me she had to leave,
Draw past the markets where the fish are sun-dried,
Snarled by the coral-rough hands of divers deep.

My mother the sea,
She left her running tab
Of the grocer’s choicest greens,
Thumbed the velamentous rinds and spiny scarola,
Her xylem and phloem are the slow moving cruciferousness of a breeze.

My mother the sea,
Charwoman of tides,
Who dips and delves upon her knees,
Who scrubs her brothel-coves with chamber lye,
Cyprian mistress of the salt-stained sheets.

I have looked for you, mother,
A scugnizzo amid the striped awnings of the marketplace
~ like sails to the sky ~
Where the fishmongers hawk their pride
Of conch, cavallo, and black sea bream.

I have looked for you, mother,
Walked sun-forged along the boardwalk,
Amid the neon-mascara of signs,
Hand-in-hand with only the ladyfingers of salt and vinegar fries,
Toward the crisp syllabub of pebbles and sand.

A beach is window-warmth spread free, cosmopolitan,
The longeur of eyes crushed in the glass-dust of cities.
And in the sputtering of the frosted spume of tides,
Held broken seashells in my hands like broken needles,
Heard the pump-click of the ventilator through your mask of sand.

My mother the sea,
A naked convalescent,
Whose ever-turnings have taken
A turn for the worse.
Who will know her by her death, who but me?

I stood by the shore,
Watching the waves pass through,
feeling its currents go against my feet.
The force was strong.
The water was cold.
My toes gripped firmly to the sand.
I could not move forward.
I did not want to move forward.
If it's this much here,
it must be worse there.
Little did I know that,
what lies ahead is better.
For as you go deeper,
water embraces more of your parts--
your body adapts to its temperature.
And there, the waves once so intimidating are calm.

The fluctuating

flood-mark, a boundary of --


dry seaweed flowers.

The misty rolling hills up high,
Bridging both the sea and sky,
Ocean below - the town above,
Transparent is this pure love.

Beg for cloud; torrent rain so free,
Wish for dark where light 'ought be,
Cobble paths stretch to desire,
Briny waves spark your heart afire.

I like the waves.
The way their static fizz tickles
the bristles of my ears,
as if they were long brown thistles in beach dunes,
engirding pools of sand between
the wet crevices of my toes.

I’ll lie in the bayside sheets of gold,
where the clouds drift silent,
encompassed by its warm fold,
soaking my horse-haired brush
into sand-speckled jar,
painting my watercolour flowers;
butter daffodils and heavens daisies.

I’ll lie on sun-dried towels
beneath chequered brolly
and scribble my brain
into summer-kissed parchment,
with leaded letters and granite words.

I’ll write in the colour of my soul,
using what’s left of my heart,
as I’m flayed down to the white-skinned bones
that hold me upright:
left thin and pale.
But, for these tapestries,
I find it worth my loves
discounted sale.