#beaches
The wind is up and the landscape is changing.
Like a bureaucratic comedy, tomorrow’s forecast calls for
‘strong winds,’ as if the gusts we’re seeing now aren’t
physical enough.
The big yachts that usually cluster offshore are gone.
They moved out, heading for deeper, more sheltered
anchorages.
We went to the outdoor Saint Tropez market this morning,
to get brugnon, abricots, rouge cherries, fresh bread and
tapenades. Fishermen in the harbor were working with
quiet anxiety to lash down and secure their boats.
On the beach, ocean waves are boring in on shore - sharper,
faster and frothier, rolling in more dramatically, tucking down
at the last second to break on the beach in sudden, forward
rolls - like you see on the gulf of Mexico.
Gulls, herons and swifts hang in the air, like sculptures in orbit,
not flapping - just rocking back and forth above the waves.
Clouds rush by, like a ticker-tape Rorschach test and the
umbrella pines are starting to shimmy like bobblehead dolls.
I wonder if the giant show kites will be up tomorrow,
the big 40-foot long ones - the whales, dragons, caterpillars,
and octopuses - I hope so.
We’ll have to watch those from the hills, because sand whips
along the beach, flowing like a sandpaper river to sting
bare ankles like a swarm of bees.
We had to tie-off our suites sheer Belgian linen drapes earlier,
they were thrashing like living flags of surrender.
I delight in this kind of domestic chaos, it makes me feel alive.
.
.
Songs for this:
Riviera Life by Caro Emerald
Sail on sailor by the beach boys
Colors Of The Wind - End Title by Vanessa Williams
21h ago
Jun 2, 2026 at 8:26 PM UTC
Evening
Whoops and hollers
Torn from tongue
Were gale flung
Back toward the village
If only soiled laundry
Stained of my poor choices
Whipped from
My clothesline of memories
Homeland of Makah
At nation’s far point
Upon that final ****** of stone
We stood atop its
Plunge into sea
Twilight gripped like
Prayer shawls
We could not hold back
Moon nor stars
Home with wind East
Shabby trailers
Stapled to the earth
Chained dogs
Feral felines
Hulks of auto
Appliances abandoned to rust
East toward the dawn
Sunrise and tide
Westward rolling
Sands swarmed with
Seekers
Out of last of night’s
Shadows seeking treasure
Even a glass Japan net float
Noon
In left hand
The map sketched on
Paper torn from
A patient’s chart
With right
I swung pack over shoulder
A cove held secret
By nailed drift and
Rusted anchor chain
We descended
In high sun
On sands, on blanket spread
In the wind hiss of surf
Naked both
Nancy taught me
Arts of love
I tongued her to screams
Night
The moon
Pulled flame into the sky
The hiss and spit
Of burning cedar
Stars!
With radar and chart
Ships cut the night
To round the point
Into the straight
Tacoma, Seattle still hours off
Firelight said a pilot
Lit with lantern
Our shapes writhed and moaned
Upon the thin tent walls
Only a raccoon to see
I slept the dream of Orca
Half brain
Still upon her skin
Her lips
Toward the morn
I slept the dream of Orca
Sep 19, 2025
Sep 19, 2025 at 8:27 PM UTC
Just trying to roll with the tide
Catching waves to the shore
Sandy beaches made for love
Every grain wanting more
When life is in a hurry
You need to learn to chill
Maybe take a drink or smoke
Get some kind of high-naked thrill
Life is good, you just don’t know it
Study up on what you’ve really got
Practice what your soul will breach
Talk about the righteous, those that have not
Karma and comeuppance, they like to dance
It’s all over when you lose your life
Give up your heartbeat and it’s dreams
Life and death is a sharp razor knife
Aug 15, 2025
Aug 15, 2025 at 1:26 AM UTC
Peter in the summer morning sun
his cool smile shaded by shadows run
his voice as soothing as coffee’s scent
tell me he wasn’t heaven sent
Peter of Malibu moss and Spanish rose
his lips like light-coral, in kissable repose
his legs slouched akimbo, like a tiger’s limbs
how I long to re-entangle myself in them.
Peter’s quick caress, on windy Tropez beaches
aren’t men the most delightful, of nature's invasive species?
I miss the jeweler’s precision, of his warm and playful hands
and how the sun slowly gifted him, with a model’s golden tan.
Peter sipping coffee under a brittle, New Haven sun,
his rough laugh following something silly I’d done.
There’s no cryptic, localized pathology, happening at the beach,
when the two of us are together, our worlds just seem complete.
.
.
Songs for this:
What the World Needs Now by Tori Holub & James Wilkas
be mine by strongboi
Mar 1, 2025
Mar 1, 2025 at 9:23 AM UTC
I’m so siced about the Barbie movie. I just watched the latest trailer. I felt a fluttering in the stummy.
Peter’s birthday was May 1st. “What do you want for your birthday?” I’d asked.
“A flash for my iPhone,” he said. “Your phone already HAS a flash,” I replied, helpfully.
“No,” he explained, “a professional, external flash - they’re much more subtle and variable.”
“What are you going to take pictures of?” I asked. “You,” he said, smiling slyly.
“Me!?” I said, with a wrinkled nose, somewhat alarmed. “You don’t take pictures of ME.”
“Not usually,” he admitted, “but we’re going to Paris and the snaps will look better with a flash.” “Just ME?” I asked, “What about some ussies?” “We’ll take snaps of us, but you’ll have savage new pics for your poetry sites.” So, Peter got his flash and he’s taken a baZillion pix.
“Smile,” click, (iPhones don’t always click, so the click’s a writer’s dramatic effect)
Peter takes bursts of 50 pix at a time and only one in fifty turns out looking good (my opinion).
“Look this way,” click “toss your hair,” click. Apparently salads and my hair are better ‘tossed.’
So now we’re in Paris, but before we can take our tourist pic, I must lean over, like I’m going to throw up and comb my hair forward, so when I flip it back, it will appear fluffy.
“Look sad, look happy, try not to look so drunk, look **** he asks. “You’re kidding,” I replied. I exist only in his view finder.
“Just part your lips slightly and look vacuous,” he advises.
“Can I DO both at once?” I asked, as if challenged by a scientific equation.
“Don’t roll your eyes,” he said. Today, he was ‘the serious artist’. I’d never want to be a model.
Finally, I’d had enough constant photography and I just started looking moody. Peter seemed not to notice.
I read somewhere that when you smile, the activated muscles of your face actually improve your mood. Or something like that. Anyway, I’m trying to deepfake myself and smile my way to happiness. I ordinarily think of myself as tough, but lately, I’m soft.
A Yale counselor once told me that sometimes we tell ourselves a story and we just hold on to that version of things until it feels true. I have to stop thinking I’m on the edge of a deep, blue loneliness. I need to get on a metaphysical bike and ride away from my sad-self.
Later, when we’re back at the hotel, Peter was reading in the living room and I was lying on the bed, watching another Heraclee Beach, sapphire and ruby, sundown through the hotel windows. Peter came looking for me. He had a book in one hand, his place saved with his index finger.
“What are you doing?” He asked, lightly. “Want to go out to dinner or get room service?”
“I’m thinking thoughts.”
“What kind of thoughts? He asked, taking a seat on a desk chair he’d rolled over. Now I’m watching his face and he’s watching mine.
“You know how, everyday, at school, we tell each other everything that happened?” Peter nodded. “Which, of course,” I’d continued, “is impossible, but it’s as if we’re having experiences just so we could discuss them later - share them. It’s like, when we aren't together, it isn’t real life.”
“So..” he said, verbally prodding me on.
My voice felt thick, like it knew I wouldn't say things right. “Well, I’m two me’s now, I’m split right down the middle. Before you, things were easy. I was becoming Dr. Me, I had one goal, things were simple,” I shrugged, “but now, there's the me that’s going to be a doctor and the me that needs you.” I can’t seem to take my eyes off his face.
He touched my foot and wiggled it a little. “You don’t have to figure out the future right NOW, Mz overachiever.” He said in his soft, western drawl, “You can’t wrestle the future into orderly submission, like a chemistry test - we don’t have enough data (says mr. physics). Anyway, don’t we have forty or fifty years to figure it out?”
Suddenly, my head felt clearer than it had for days. I chuckled. I may have had my hand over my mouth and a smile was so big it hurt my face.
“You were very patient to put up with me today,” I said, turning slightly and quietly serious.
“You be you,” he said, smiling bigly back, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Then I got serious. “Do you think we can find barbecue?”
“But of course!” he said, in a fake French accent, like Lemiure, in ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
Jun 24, 2023
Jun 24, 2023 at 11:32 PM UTC
The Heraclee sky was a lurid, neon blue but the morning was surprisingly cool (at 54°). The antemeridian sun managed to cast sharp, surreal, black-hole shadows, giving the world a baroque art look, as if we were strolling through a Rembrandt painting, where everything is defined by shadows.
The lavish breeze, coming up off the Mediterranean Sea, seemed compressed and frantic, as if trying to flee the choppy, sapphire water. Tall marsh grasses waved back and forth, as if to unheard music, reminding me of 60-thousand swaying arms at the Taylor Swift concert.
Higher up, the wind played with feather-like clouds, making them seem to rise, fall and spill over each other in their race for the horizon. On the beach, there were ten or more colorful, elaborate kites - the French love their multi-wired stunt kites.
There was a dragon, a multi-color WWI biplane, there were bird kites, an octopus and a swooping butterfly. We watched them for a while, from a hill. “I’m going to get one of those,” Peter said, dreamily (for use on the Malibu beach his parents' modest home overlooks).
A little later, Peter and I decided to bike down to the beach from the hotel. The idea was valid but the bikes, seeming leftovers from World War 2, shook and rattled like percussion instruments as we made the death-defying plunge down the steep, uneven stone-laid path. We were laughing, screaming and half convinced we’d die by the time we reached the bottom.
Once there, a snooty concierge said, “That is NOT the bike path.” Which seemed hilarious. When Peter replied, dead faced, “We’re American,” as if that were an internationally understood pass for being stupid. It made us laugh so hard we couldn’t look at each other for a couple of minutes. I don’t know which hurt more, my bottom or my side.
As our guffaws were dying down, Charles arrived on the bike path.
“Why’d you do THAT?” (take the wrong path) he asked, with a tone of irritated censure.
“There was a sign,” I argued, gasping for air from my still doubled up laughing position, “that said ‘Bike Path?’" my voice rising like a sarcastic question.
“You didn’t notice the ten-inch tall, blue arrow under the words pointing to the bike path?”
Sometimes Charles can be extra over - as in overprotective and over-reactive.
As Cherles and I wrangled away, Peter stood patiently by, waiting. He doesn’t argue with Charles, he says he finds the 6-foot-3-inch, retired NYC policeman a little intimidating.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, dismissively, “he’s a big ‘ol teddy bear.”
May 28, 2023
May 28, 2023 at 12:00 PM UTC
Lost, refound
Boding a sense of austerity...
That predicted a conscience, of how
The wait and waters, of possibility...
Finish me
My salt's worth, is a heroism to find
The world in a tailspin, a poised anarchy?
That sees the seldom of assurance to mind...
Long and bared
The tooth of passion
Has been lost, somewhere
And a secret with my needs, has an intuition
Berate a friend for slowness...?
A tale of homage and vestige, to count
As another ideal live and let live, of kindness
Has come and gone, to consider a chastity in the round?
Curiosity, is at an all-time high?
Time with a haphazard sign of the times?
Bared elucidation will become our justice for nigh?
Asked by a truer us, the past to few, is but intellects shines?
Until...
A silence is broken by the seizure of occults
Of vice and sigh's of vindication, a bitter pill?
We can spend on moral's, the better purpose without walls
Pittances and pains, patience and poorness
Through an angel's eyes, devil's become a shadow
Of complexity we should know, for a world to guess
A faring sunshine to tell a story about a staring shame, love?
Jun 20, 2022
Jun 20, 2022 at 12:06 AM UTC
If the Ground was above Us
and the 'Sky' lay Below.
I would still Love U.........Darling,
as U are My Rose in the Snow.
If the Deserts had no Sand
and the Beaches had no Sea.
Concerts would be performing,
without the likes of U and Me.
If Today was Tomorrow
and old Memories turned New.
I would cherish all the flashbacks,
even if they were handful or few.
If only U turn, Days to Nights.
So My Dreams come True.
I would be a very lucky Fellow,
rocking the 'Sky' with U.
Jun 3, 2022
Jun 3, 2022 at 1:17 PM UTC
The Cornish shore …
Where golden sand lies next
To dappled grey granite rock,
Where the sea breeze sweeps
And the mussels flock,
Where the rock pools gather
And the small ***** patrol,
Where the white foam curls
And the breakers roll,
Where the sea birds call
And the salt spray stings,
Where the seaweed sunbathes
And the limpet clings,
Where a stream’s course meanders,
And reflects the azure sky,
Where a starfish gazes skywards
And white clouds go scudding by.
By all means take treasured memories,
But please take nothing more,
And leave nothing but your footprints
On this sacred Cornish shore …
May 8, 2021
May 8, 2021 at 1:08 AM UTC
We hurtle down the last few hundred feet
of steep lavender lined cobbled slope
shaded by majestic umbrella pines - around
a last hairpin turn and there they are:
The blue-white Pampelonne beaches, of St Tropez.
Their indecent beauty almost defeats words.
With the scents of lavender, pine and salt sea air, you can
get dizzy on the aromatics. It's a Mediterranean performance
or perhaps a preview of heaven.
Our daredevil, fifteen year old driver, (Sylvain)
gets an unappreciative look from my mom. My brother (Brice)
and sister (Annick) whoop as if practiced, as they leap
from the open-sided Mercedes shuttle. I calmly gather my things.
This tranquil and elegant beach cove is private for hotel
guests - no chic crowds here - just a few quiet guests and
valets dressed in beige. The Pampelonne beaches are *******
**** if you like), Annick peels ******* just before she hits the waves.
Brice, ever the considerate brother says, “Come ON,
RELAX, you’ll just look like one of the BOYS.”
Which earns him the old, American, one-finger salute.
I missed vacations this year and the beaches - where hours
stretch, with blissful laziness, to the rhythm of nature.
Will we ever get back to some pre-pandemic "normal"?
Jan 4, 2021
Jan 4, 2021 at 6:22 AM UTC
my footfalls translate to mileage in the
way that feathers can be lost to a given
amount of wing beats—
each iteration of propulsion will shed
bits of material,
and these are mixed into the sands that are
splashed across beaches, bleached and
eventually broken down into elemental shapes
one of those grains flew and landed on a
boardwalk and then another one
kicked it aside many years ago
by some distant shoreline,
they now lie together in my path—
why i know this is anyone's guess,
but surely the math is in my favor
needless to say, even if my remains withstand
the sands of time there wont be anyone
left to recognize me,
yet i am certain a piece of me will always
be a few steps ahead somewhere,
either washed there from a recent gale,
or maybe blown from the nostrils
of a passing sea gull...
"shoes and feathers"
© 2020 by Seranaea Jones
all rights reserved
Jul 28, 2020
Jul 28, 2020 at 8:40 PM UTC
rip all my hairs out hoping they access a brain cell to help me wipe my memory like a shaun white, snow tidal wipeout
strand by strand hoping to find a destresser to pull the plug of my brain's photobooks
you catalyze my grief and a cobweb nostalgia
silk an admired commodity yet **** out by a creature who has it handed to it at aggregated birth
stuck in this mess
but i have my fist clenched around a web which is as adhesive as a 48 hour hardened glue
glued to you but i'm acetone fused and it's only a serum's distance to an isle of distant cries , haunting melodies of f# major vocal hymns and
a sand filled paradise where wild life flies and quick sand awaits to offer a gorgeous, satin, embodiment of warmth.
yours deceivingly..
that good old horrendous feeling
Jul 21, 2020
Jul 21, 2020 at 2:54 AM UTC
This, this song I made you, let it pierce your heart,
like the silver moon earrings, the ones I gave you,close your eyes,
Let me hold you on high.
Let me hold you on high.
Like the Kansas fields that outnumber the stars,
let's walk on the wheat fields of gold, for even
if I can't forgive you, my heart will freely love you.
Over and over, over and over,
like red Georgia Peaches, like Florida Beaches,
wave after wave, I’ll show you a new song,
So we can be one again, let it all sweep you away.
For the diamonds at dusk, are waiting for us.
For like the Chicago sunrise, let the power of it's sunrise,
sing you back to life, until you are alive and washed by dreams.
Embrace me, hold on, like a California dream, pretend it's just me,
like the ring on your finger, let this be,
let this be, a time between you and me.
For if you harden your heart, lets go back to one,
let me be like your silver moon earrings,
let me hold you on high.
let me hold you on high.
Jun 13, 2020
Jun 13, 2020 at 10:06 AM UTC
𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓇 𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈
𝓈𝑜 𝒷𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉
𝓁𝒶𝓊𝑔𝒽𝓉𝑒𝓇
𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒶 𝑔𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓁𝑒 𝒷𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓏𝑒
𝒷𝓁𝓊𝑒 𝓈𝓀𝒾𝑒𝓈
𝓈𝓅𝒶𝓇𝓀𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝑒𝒶𝓈
May 2, 2020
May 2, 2020 at 12:02 PM UTC
I love to wake up and see you
I love to wake up and hear you
Your smell in my hair
Your taste on my tongue
I want to spend every day near you
Sunrises and sunsets are the best
But, I hate the feel of the sand on my body
I sunburn too quickly
I am not a strong swimmer
This is my sad love affair with the ocean!
Apr 24, 2020
Apr 24, 2020 at 9:05 PM UTC
Distances
by Michael R. Burch
Moonbeams on water —
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.
Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.
Keywords/Tags: Distance, sun, star, moon, reflection, memories, beaches, shores, near, far, night, shadows, footprints, water
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 3:48 AM UTC
Is this a real sand beach
Or is pebbles
All I new that that sun set seen like the real
Thing
So I step
On to the beach
White sand how about it that.
Sep 2, 2019
Sep 2, 2019 at 9:34 AM UTC
i am the ocean waves
crashing into your beaches
only to find everyone
and everything
but you...
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 7:18 AM UTC
Warm days
Heavy nights
Lemonade
Mosquito bites
Dancing bees
Delicious honey
Sweet tea,
Yummy, yummy
Swimming pools
Shade trees
Staying cool
Ice cream
Summer showers
Juicy peaches
Budding flowers
Warm beaches
Vacation's over
School begins
Time's slower
Summer ends
ALesiach © 8/2016
Jul 24, 2019
Jul 24, 2019 at 3:03 PM UTC
i spent all day updating dating
profiles and drinking champagne -
sipping iced coffee on bright beaches
i daydreamed as the palm trees waved -
pillows of smoke and wide blue skies
i wondered what you're doing today -
who you talk too, and what they say
i thought i saw the future
i saw it coming for my soul
i ran as fast as i could
i didn't realize i was letting go
Mar 26, 2019
Mar 26, 2019 at 9:26 AM UTC
Its a summer,
sitting in the house older than the dirt in the garden just outside.
In the summer heat,
where we wear our bathing suits all day long.
We stay out in the sun because,
Pop pop says its good for us
We eat and eat and eat,
And we play and play and play
"stay young," Pop Pop mumbles under his breath,
of course when I was younger I never truly understood the words spoken form his lips.
As a teen in my grandparent's backyard,
my ungraceful limbs and awkward body were welcomed.
Mom mom and Pop pop loved my brace face even when I didn't.
My stomach rolls didn't matter.
In fact, the only rolls that did matter were the ones we ate with our macaroni.
In my grandparents home, we spend busy mornings,
but lazy afternoons playing poker at the table.
In my grandparents house,
sadness rolls away like the waves at the local New England beach.
Of course, like any good family, things can get angry and heated,
But at my grandparent's house,
that's just how we know it is time for a swim.
Feb 28, 2019
Feb 28, 2019 at 7:36 PM UTC
Satin ribbons of galaxy blue sparkle
mild, but melting
they hang from the hair of a sweet gentle head
raven, but silky
One tear to spill for delicate tosses
strands so inky and spellbound in blue
Tides of strands so vast they ripple
whisps glimmer the breeze
smelling of coco and brandy
Bright beams of beach sky all around
waves of plenty
magic images fade
blue afternoons stand still
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
I'm not a pretty sunset on the beach
With small waves and a spring breeze.
My waves are high
They rumble fiercely.
No coral reef but a bed of rocks that guards ***** and sea urchins.
But I'll still love you more than the waves will ever love the shore.
Dec 27, 2018
Dec 27, 2018 at 2:21 PM UTC