There were four of them dressed in loud yellow t-shirts
and muffled white-washed jeans. Three carried rubber
ended stick-picks and sand crusted sky-blue buckets  
for hypodermic needles and diapers and condoms.

The last of them, an older stocky gentleman with thick
red skin and no more than ten years left to live maneuvered
a grass-green, six-cylindered, diesel-powered tractor with
an old metallic rake attached to its bed across cold soft sand.

These four men are the edge-of-morning-heroes,
– they have to be the edge-of morning-heroes,
these four men, the beach combers.

My friends, have we appreciated the fruit of their labor?
the outcome of their edge-of-morning-efforts?

It was because of them that I was there, because of them
that the great lake was enjoyable, swimmable, because of them
that my heart had become a poem whose first stanza opened
with a young man staring off into the open, ocean-blue horizon,

water birds skipping, circling open-winged with webbed
feet behind him, his brown legs nestled firmly in the swash,
where to the left of him, a couple, neck-deep, was making love
between the familiar crest and trough of a wave, making love

between the familiar beginning and end of something
– going deeper, under still as a plane hummed overhead.

My friends, will the future appreciate the fruit of their labor?
the outcome of their edge-of-morning-efforts?

She yelled from the bottom of the stairs

"What the **** are you DOING!?"

My neighbor, Mr. Monroe with the mustache, ring on every finger and a parrot that talked, pressed his face to the glass to look down at her.

"What the **** are YOU looking at?"

Mr. Monroe quickly went back to his day time soap operas and corn flakes. He never left the house because he believed their was going to be a grand earthquake where everyone that was outside getting food, shopping or at the beach, would die. He told me he believed that his house was a fortress and that God or mother nature or what have you could never touch him if he just stayed holed up in his room with his corn flakes and bath robes and old Sunday newspapers.

"HEY GUY, LET'S GO!"

I gingerly stepped out of my place. I stared up at the sky which was blue spattered with white clouds that were inching slowly toward the ocean. It was a beautiful day.

"******* FINALLY. What were you DOING?"

"Just getting myself a little more ready then usual."

"WHY?"

"I'm nervous or something."

We were headed to a dinner with my parents. I was going to introduce them to Alice and wanted to make sure all my pampering was in order, my mother could always tell if I forgot to comb my hair or use deodorant, my father didn't care. I walked cooly and lightly down the stairs.

"Well you smell like a laundry mat people have been drinking and ******* in."

"Thank you baby."

I kissed her on the cheek, waved up to Mr. Monroe who had gently re-placed his face upon his living room window, and headed to my car.

---

"So what you are you gonna' say to them about me?"

"I'll tell them we have a lot of *** and like movies."

"Really?"

"I don't know. Why not?"

"Seems strange."

"Were strange."

"What if we get married and they say that at our wedding and its awkward and my parents get mad."

"I'm not thinking that far off."

"Well you ******* SHOULD!"

Alice opened the window and stared out at the ocean which passed by with blinking blue reflective lights, beach combers and sand dune cops. There were many surfers wading in the light blue water waiting for the NEXT BIG ONE. I thought it was funny how they could sit out there for so long, not doing anything, and call it some kind of religion. I liked the idea of doing nothing and it saving you, I wanted to join but I was afraid of sharks.

"Do you want to get married to me?"

"No."

"I wouldn't either."

We drove down the highway but hit a big block of heavy traffic. We were gonna be late.

---

By an instinct I acquired either by fate, magic or the hand of the GOOD LORD, I ordered a hamburger with curly fries. The waiter was a young kid fresh out of college with a messy head of hair and a slight limp stuck on his right leg, he said it came from a biking accident but the kid looked like a scrapper.

My mother was alone on the other side of the table while Alice intensely examined the menu. There were clouds in her eye not of insecurity but of determination for my mother to accept her and pull no punches, when she wanted something she got it, like me.

"To start I am so sorry about your father not being here. He didn't come home last night and I haven't heard from him all morning so I suspect he forgot and slept at the office to get an early start on this Friday morning."

"It's fine Mrs. Kindle. I just feel so BAD for you."

"No worries. It is sweet of you to say though."

"Very sweet Alice. Yeah, I'm sorry Mom. Dad's an *** like that sometimes."

"Yes he is."

The water was warm when the waiter brought it. I hadn't looked at the menu but everyone was ready to order. I was thinking about my father all holed up in his on-site construction office, sweating over blue print over blue print, re-examining every last comma, every last note until it was "perfect". He had tried to get me into the business but I always hated a path that had already been trampled and organized upon, I didn't see the point.

"So how did you guys meet?"

"We actually met at one of Joe and Abe's parties."

We actually had met at a hot bar with loud music and cheap drinks with the wind ripping men and women to pieces outside and the bar man said we looked like we would make a good couple but we had never even looked or talked to each other but because this one little bartender in this one little hot tiny bar gave us the idea that maybe, just maybe, we would be good for each other I bought Alice a drink and then, thinking it would be funny and how she hates cliches, she bought me a drink and we got very drunk within the dark heated bar with the people swinging back and forth with the loud quick hipster electronica madness that spun all around us invisible in the smoke and the liquor and the cigarette smoke and there, in that dark steamy bar, we talked and talked and talked until I got a little drunker then her and she took me home, which we laughed about in the morning after we had drank a couple glasses of wine and tried to have *** but were both to drunk to talk or have *** or even kiss for that matter, we fell asleep on top of each other's faces and both of our necks were twisted and hurting in the morning.

"We call it "Our Spontaneous Romance".

"Very funny."

"Alice, do you know what you want yet?"

Alice, keeping her eyes down on the menu not looking up for a second.

"Not quite."

My mother shifted in her seat, she was getting anxious because she wanted to eat and she was worried about my dad. He'd been "busy" with many "things" that he "didn't like to talk about" or was "too tired to talk about" and it made my mom shift and silently sigh after every conversation either about the subject or related too.

"I'm going to have the soup and the sandwich"

"Turkey sandwich and salad for me."

"Healthy."

"Have to be."

"One sec..."

"OK."

"No rush."

"Mashed potatoes and gravy and ribs, that's what I want."

"Very nice..."

"Very nice."

"Thank you."

Alice was nervous. She ate mass amounts of food when she was either nervous or in tight confined places where she needed to converse but had absolutely nothing to say, the large order was her scapegoat and she would later blame it on *******, anxiety and depression, half of which was probably my fault. Alice didn't want to meet the parents, she thought it pointless, a waste of time and pushing towards something that may not even actually happen. She believed being invisible in a phenomenal world was the only way to go through life and in some respects, I agreed with her but also, I knew deep down, she was a little crazy, as was I.

---

"Thank you for meeting Alice and I for lunch Mom."

"Not a worry at all, I'm sorry about your father."

"I'll talk to him later."

"It was very very nice meeting you, very nice."

Alice and my mother shook hands cooly and suspiciously underneath the 3 o'clock sun. They hadn't talked much at lunch and I honestly didn't know how it went at all, they spoke about their food and that was it. Perhaps they neither hated or liked each other, maybe they were simply indifferent towards each other's presence and what they meant to me at all. They smiled, Alice waved as did I as my mom drove away down the hot black top. Alice, still waving said.

"Horrible, that was just horrible."

"I thought it went right as it went, neither here nor there."

"We didn't talk about anything but the food."

"Maybe that's all there was to talk about, some people meet and have absolutely nothing to say to each other, happens more then you think."

"Sounds right must be right."

"Let's go."

We both walked to my car which was boiling hot inside, the kind of hot when you enter when one wishes they couldn't breathe. We quickly opened the window turning on the radio listening to an old blues station for a second. I but the gears in reverse and slowly backed out of the restaurant parking lot as Alice neatly put on her dark sunglasses and rubbed sun tan lotion on her face, leaving a small patch on the tip of her nose. I paused the car before entering onto the main road.

"Let's get married Alice."

"I was about to say the same thing."

I pulled onto the main road home, nearly getting in an accident with a road biker who shook their fist violently toward my gleaming fender. I lightly smiled, embarrassingly laughed to myself, merging on. We were off.

THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE DANCED ON SHERE KHAN’S HIDE

The Song of Mowgli—I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
      the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would ****—would ****! At the
      gates in the twilight he would **** Mowgli, the
      Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
      when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
      of the ****.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother,
      come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there
      is big game afoot.
Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned
      herd-bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to
      and fro as I order.
Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, O wake!
      Here come I, and the bulls are behind.
Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with his
      foot. Waters of the Waingunga, whither went
      Shere Khan?
He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, that
      he should fly. He is not Mang, the Bat, to hang
      in the branches. Little bamboos that creak to-
      gether, tell me where he ran?
Ow! He is there. Ahoo! He is there. Under the
      feet of Rama lies the Lame One! Up, Shere
      Khan! Up and ****! Here is meat; break the
      necks of the bulls!
Hsh! He is asleep. We will not wake him, for his
      strength is very great. The kites have come down
      to see it. The black ants have come up to know
      it. There is a great assembly in his honour.
Alala! I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites will
      see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet all
      these people.
Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay
      striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock.
By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise—
      a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I
      keep my word.
With the knife—with the knife that men use—with
      the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop down
      for my gift.
Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere
      Khan gives me his coat for the love that he bears
      me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela! Heavy is
      the hide of Shere Khan.
The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk
      child’s talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let us run
      away.
Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly
      with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights
      of the village and go to the low moon.
Waters of the Waingunga, the Man Pack have cast me
      out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of
      me. Why?
Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is
      shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why?
As Mang flies between the beasts and the birds so fly
      I between the village and the jungle. Why?
I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is
      very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with
      the stones from the village, but my heart is very
      light because I have come back to the jungle.
      Why?
These two things fight together in me as the snakes
      fight in the spring. The water comes out of my
      eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?
I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is under
      my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan.
      Look—look well, O Wolves!
Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do
      not understand.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
      And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
      At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
      Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
      Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
  And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
  At rest in the hollows that rustle between.

Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
  Ah, weary, wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
  Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July,
        I read your heart in a book.

And your mouth of blue *****-I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered.

And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held there listening to the sea, the great naked sea shouldering a load of salt.

And the blue ***** mouth sang to the sea:
        Mother of God, I'm so little a thing,
        Let me sing longer,
        Only a little longer.

And the sea shouldered its salt in long gray combers hauling new shapes on the beach sand.

I’m not afraid to admit
very few things
she thinks,
head nestling on the window,
over the sleeping Atlantic, eyes,
like drowsy oceans, swelling
over combers of clouds:
she watches herself
drift away
    do I arrive
            or depart
(a return or restart)
to the city of light
that has warmed,
since girl dreams were born,
the tomorrows
of my lamp lit heart?

yet what could I do,
but dawdle and pine,
write this and offer art:
and hope it speaks mine,

am I not a wonder?
keen, sonorous in stride,
industrious, strength,
brimming with pride; bonafide,
–zut alors
you and me,
divided. I abhor
the wind that blew          (your delicate cloud)
               from my Rhine.

is your love sewn in guilt,
cold repentance and blame,
is your sweet foolish heart,
here chained to mistakes?

what if you are a photograph,
captured among many,
held by each but for one fleeting frame,
(will you forget my antiquated name?)
which of your colours:
Manet unsentimental,
or Impressions in variation,
french vanilla in tumble,
or, contours, postcards, and maps,
shall fleshen our past–
these stilted
and dwindled days.

I think, for me,
forever in evening,
in fear of
the fast falling night,
or moving slow, pale
window glow,
afternoons, sunlit
in the space,
between grace, clocks,
and tunes: I fumble like a stone
to breathe l’espirit of you.
I know and you know.  I suppose,

unfurl in a brave new start,
above bonds of looming crows,
blankets of Western valley snows,
the beating red of my radio spire;

think of a lingering dusk,
when you see that Eiffel tower
on the lush fields of March,

but imagine us as that point,
over fresh Champs du March,
a glimmer at the peak,
on the flat earth,
apart.

(... she plays with words)

~

like wind she plays with words,
shaped sand upon the beach;
building castles to the sky,
where tide her walls can't breach.

the combinations countless,
she untangles any stumbling lines;
in tapestry-flowing fountains,
her words to us, our sip of wine.

with nary but her hands she crafts,
poetry 'neath the noonday sun;
ceasing not except to watch,
a seabird as it tends its song.

in subtleties she stirs,
her adjectives like riffs;
nuanced dance in every verb,
a song that rises 'cross the drifts.

words that rivet every reader.
lines that wile a way with rhymes;
stanzas frame a photograph,
her free verse plays along in time.

combers rendered speechless,
marvel her poetic ways;
high as terns can fly she reaches,
as with every term she plays.

her muse in song delights
in ev'ry crashing wave she's heard;
her phrasing light takes winged flight,
like wind she plays with words.

on sands that ripple 'long the shore,
like conductor's arms at final score;
crescendo builds... she stands *****,
then fades to black when sun has set.

~

post script.

today she was my morning muse... a delightfully brilliant poet who knows how to play with words in a most riveting way!  i only just found her beautiful.work.  please allow me to introduce you to Chelsea Rae in these lines:  http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1861530/shine-your-love/

Beach Combers Dilemma.


A rod for my own back, telescopic to

boot and a reel to addle my head.


It's a fish killing implement and I a

sympathetic vegetarian predisposed

to humaneness, hence the dilemma.


Throw it into the deep tidal swell, let

Thalassa thrash it against the rocks.


But am I depriving someone to feed a

hungry family, (of refugees perhaps).


Theres a trawler wrecked, livelihoods

destroyed, am I holier than thou?


Who am I to pass judgement, let he

has not fished cast the first troll.

Oh! Hush you, my baby, the night is behind us,
        And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
        At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be your pillow;
        ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at the ease!
The storm shall not wake you, nor shark overtake you,
        Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas!

i like to remember that
waves still form in part
due to ocean basins

that my intuition
skims along the floors
and only reverberates
all that it finds to the top,

so maybe if I better
understood the reasoning
the seat of my heart, the crux
of why I am, this turbulence
would come a little easier,

the combers,  though heavy
and unyielding--predictable,
navigable, waters I can
sail on.

Brilliant blue skies stretching  
for as far as the eyes can see.
Golden rays of the sun
shining down upon me.  
Water shimmering like mirrors,
reflections of years gone by.
Seagulls keeping watch,
gliding through the sky.
Beach combers searching
for treasures along the shore.
Lovers walking hand in hand
falling deeper than before.
And just like a wave
is pulled back out to sea,  
it's mystery draws me closer
with the force of gravity.

I'd love to live in a nice home by the sea
High above on the cliffs with a birds eye view
Below sailboats joyously flapping sails
Like butterflies flitting amongst flowers.

Fumes of mist riding on gentle breeze
Whilst salting everything it touches
Boulders skin head giants half submerged
Guardsmen protect my home by the sea.

Further out the beach like no man's land
Low tide ***** busy burrowed pin holes
Depositing tiny droplets of sand nearby
Entrances of it's shifting homes by the sea.

Weary of snipers scurry hole to hole
Staying low in the holes as the tides come
In the mornings beach combers, joggers,
Criss crossing by my home by the sea.

Curious seagulls from the lonely piers
Tankers, ships, moveable islands on the horizon
Wind can be mild, breezy, can be rough
But all is well at my home by the sea.

I'll go down winding steps to warm sand
And the teething waves welcoming me
Suppose I've millions of dollars to spend
I'd love to live in a nice home by the sea.

My heart is a deserted isle
Distress lines its marooned shore
A fleet of pneumas that reckoned they'd find
What they'd been hunting for.

But your treasure plans were lying
There's zilch aurous beneath my sand
Don't brook the sea persuade you
That it's benigner on my land.

You might be a habile matelot
With nothing but the pristine aim
But i have stoushed so many corsairs
That you now all appear the same.

So take heed of my fanal
Even combers burst on my rocks
There's a rationale not a lone ship
Has made it to my docks.

And i wish i could render cover
From those squall billows in my sky
Because you've not made it aground
But you should know, neither have i.

No, I'm not addressing those
residing at surfers paradise or
the beach combers who are out
there looking at the wave graves
in the off chance of finding floaters
gold which is no different to what
one expects to discover at the end
of an Irish rainbow, providing you
get there before the Leprechauns.

Road rangers of ******* left to the wind,
CokeCans@McDonnells should have been binned.

Appache are pronto delivered by Tonto
Kemo Sabe's Comanche, but could be Monsanto?

Is it just here in Cork that those boxes are red
Kentucky Fried Chicken to the crows it is fed.

So who are the Tidies around town here in Mallow,
do they go out much further?  Yes, as far as Duhallow !!


For the volunteers. Mallow Tidy Towns.
Polluted by American take away's

I am currently watching
and listening to someone
who is wishing to die.

Aged 95 with an unresolved
family issue, that she will
take to her watery Irish grave.

From a beach, combers wait
the doomed destiny of this
vessel in distress.

Family squabbles over wills or
wants, the spoils of a low water
mark, to be left by her ebbing tide.

Grief;

How deep is your well,
Kept clean in a garden,
Why do you empathize,
with grief,
as if you could fly by,
and catch them on your hooks,
to carry them to the distant morning,
with heroic stamina.
Your horizon is red like her,
Egypt,
your hollow waiting,
your distant sun,
your ocean of patient grief,
the weight of planets,
is perhaps just a channel to Tuscany.
-floating-
This happy accident happened to you,
like a car crash, and then another slower one,
as more has passed than can come, passed middle age,
as you wither, because you're more careful,
but also because the branches sway,
the willow blossoms, and time will steal you from me.
You're awfully humble,
to be a passenger and gracefully wither,
with all your mindful might,
and bear the thought of what could have been;
a joyful child in his father's arms.
How deep is your well,
while Tuscany sleeps,
while the beach combers pick the glass from the sand,
that you yourself chewed so she would not cut herself,
dear Tuscany, who thinks only of herself,
who had to be reached by your well, so you grew so thin,
to touch her toes, and wash away again,
as the willow branch waves goodbye,
as a baby to a stranger driving by.
A winter well someday,
A dry well,
A forgotten well, a stone circle, another child's footsteps,
Another life alive, burning joy, born after you passed by,
to live having never met you.
Your lineage, dry,
wet by some other loving grief.
Long are the teeth in your mouth,
Long are the echoes of joyful children playing in the school ground,
which is your bell blessing,
that you ring when you arrive.
Passenger,
Driver,
Man child.



-cb

Sunshine up the coast, just a single line of bright sunlight shining through the, ever present, rain.
The ocean lies flat, barely a surge on the West coast, which is a rare thing. They tell me they can't get out of the harbour on the East coast,
Big waves rolling in from the Pacific. There is nothing but a vast ocean between the shores of Chile and New Zealand then to the South, Antactica with it's massive glaciation surging to the sea.

That Great Southern Ocean, with it's parade of icebergs and permanent population of killer whales, that ocean generates the atmospheric depressions which whirl up in tight formation and hammer the islands of New Zealand with those titanic South East gales.
They only blow for a day or so but in that time they tear the place to pieces.
Curling into Cook Strait between the two islands the South Easterly generates mountainous seas which slam into the inter islander ferries, quickly shutting down operations. The big boats with their cargo of wild eyed, green, sea sick tourists and chained down vehicles, heaving wildly in the giant combers and fleeing with all possible haste for the shelter and safety of a lee shore port.

Blasting North from Wellington leaving deserted, rain soaked streets in the city, the South East gale howls up the island to concertina up against the 8000 ft flank of the Egmont volcano this further compresses the gale transforming it into a howling banshee which allows no man to stand upright.  100 year old giant mamaku treeferns thrash about like matchsticks, the gale shredding huge forests of vegetation, a phalanx of leaves and branches flying horizontal with the ground surface and freezing rain which sears when it hits the face and leaves the toughest men running, with panic, for shelter wearing torrid, bright pink, stinging cheeks beneath their wildly, startled eyes.

The gale endures into the night, all power is gone and no repair crews will venture until it is safe to do so. Outside the monster moans in it's fury and the wife and I cower sleeplessly under the covers, in bed waiting for the juddering roof to be torn off our dwelling allowing the deluge to saturate and destroy all.
There is no sleep to be had and as the night progresses the terror rises incrementally with the rising shriek of the gale and the blast of the teeming hail impacting like bullets against the windward windows.

The night is interminable...and then, suddenly, the eyes crack open to a beautiful calmness, the morning sun, guilelessly, pouring in the bedroom window!

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ
5 July 2020

When he was not at sea, Con
was a bootlegging infringer
who dabbled in plagiarism,
illegal copying, and stealing
from refugee beach combers.

He was a crooked man, related
to the one in the crooked house,
the chap who stole the sixpence
from the blind busker by the stile,
took his cat also, by all accounts.

Before he sank his boat he lived
in misdemeanour way out on
the ocean but no one ever knew.
So, Con's Piracy Theory is proven,
stranded sailors are fierce *******.

And I was drowning
yes me the ecologist
happy to be buoyed
by a rogue net full of
coke bottles drifting
towards the beach
where combers stood
by a land ahoy jutting
out isthmus lighthouse
morsing semaphore to
sea gulls telling them
the menu had changed.