"holidaying" poems
It smells like summer on the island
Like laundry and leaves
Like late-afternoon lakewater
And pollen-filled breeze
I remember my summers on the island
The bunkbeds and bonfires
Beaches, bikinis
And dirt roads under dark tires
Birch trees and blackberries
Blue birds and sour cherries
Two hours on the ferry
Summer on the island
Lawn chairs and lemonade
Hammock-hanging, holidaying
Laying in the lazy shade
Hiking high into the bright blue sky
Deep inhale and satisfied sigh
We had been waiting for this
Our summer on the island
Cold tides and closed eyes
Penny candy and pecan pie
Crop-tops, flip-flops, tree-forts and drop-offs
Crayfish, crayons
And breakfast on the dock at dawn
This was summer on our island
Millions of mosquitoes, minnows and movies till midnight
Eating smores in the smoky firelight
Running through the trailer park in the rain after dark
Our summer on this island
Everything was my favourite part
I loved it all
The grass
The trees
The foamy waterfall
Sun, seagulls and sand dunes
Either services or sleeping in till noon
Sweet island summer, over too soon
Summer on the island
Was a lifetime ago
The island was my summer
But I’m letting go.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
The weathervane slept high above with a lolling head.
Clouds were holidaying excessively in Spain.
Sun was lost in a haze after chain smoking cooling towers.
A lethargic wind, moseying low with cat-like whiskers,
I hear it complain “I’m tired” in child-like whispers.
My hands are sweat-sore with callouses
And salty enough to summon the call of gulls in numbers;
I find shade, imagining myself as a cartoon Huck Finn.
When I put dry grass between cracked lips and think of dustbowls
In a zoetrope of sun-stroke, I vanish through my buttonholes.
This is now where one would rise, wake or come to.
Nothing I recognise, else the world is enveloped in storms.
I strain my sight, blink repeatedly to force myself awake,
The angels are listening, I hear wheezing, see fingers in my dreams
Gripping tightly to milk thistle stars, bursting at the seams.
Amongst the angels, whispering too! Did the stars imprison you?
Free-spirit like mother, but I slept our childhood through
Sustained by knowledge gleaned from canteen floors—
My eyes feel somehow sharp, heavy, like spears more than eyes;
I thought I saw the weathervane spinning madly, unraveling the skies!
Nobody talks about the weather.
There is a good chance of wrought nerves.
This is a time of stillness and dwelling on doorsteps,
In doorways where death sits among us, resting his eyes,
An end to the ration that was harmless reminiscence
As memories go up in the heat like celluloid;
Now the stars are a steely prison
Heaven’s lustre is lost, missing.
Through the angels I have seen that this is a time of living -
Through our dreams I have seen that this is a time of living -
Outside the confinement of the Holocene.
—I have dreamt of drowning...often. I always seem to wake up out and breath and feel I can taste the salt in my mouth but fear does not play any part in these dreams.
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
Adoringly applauding
Arrogant acrobatic aristocratic,
Bourgeois bad-boys.
Braving boredom and bills,
Caught controlling criminal
Circles like a circus.
Daring to do, and to deceive
Desperate damsels in distress,
Each accepting enemies.
Everyone explaining elements
From the final fights
Frought with frustration.
Getting groovy- grown old
Garnering glittering gold.
Holidaying in Getafé,
Holding onto hands of harlots,
Implying impotence and insolence,
Ignorant in their ilk.
Jovially joking,
Jesting about juvenile jealousies;
"I kissed Katie Kurtis"
Knowingly comments one kid.
Left to love and lose,
Like Caesar and his laurels,
Making music and malice,
Manifesting manic malpractices.
Natalie narrates,
"Not now, not ever".
Obvious obstacles avoided,
Objectifying objects that are obsolete.
Praying, pondering over pros,
False prophets photographed as they pose.
Qualifying quangos,
Quantitative quelling of queries,
Raising riots and runctions,
Realising regal and royal remedies,
Celebrating summer solstice,
Solitude is bliss.
Try tampering telephones
To transcribe threat of treason,
Unreal unilateral promises
Unwound by underlying urchins.
Vowing to voice very real values,
Vox pop video views.
Wearing water coloured wellingtons,
Wondering over wax cuneiform works.
Xylophone playing exemplary,
Xavier exists in the imaginary.
Yearly yearning for you,
You're yoked as Gonne with Yeats
(unequally)
Zeroing in on Ritz and Rubble,
Rubble the Zealots want to reign.
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 6:43 PM UTC
you know,
you can imitate walking like a crow,
hunchbacked with a probing
index of a hand's pentagon
akin to the yellow pages being
itemised - walking like a crow
in the middle of night -
primarily because we started dicing a song
into rhythm deviating from rhyme:
it got boring after a while...
until it's an export, it ain't an import -
so ridicule the seance of hillbillies
in Soouthend for caricature of holidaying;
you can walk like a crow
in the night, hunchbacked, glistening variety of
into the void by black sabbath as accomplice -
crouched the solemn bird agile on foot -
crow walk hunchbacked:
why is the raven like a writing desk?
it's a hunchback on foot or with pen in hand
readied to scribble footprints onto
the slouched backbone of forgotten flight;
hunchback crow walk in the night,
a reverse of a Victorian street lamp lighter -
shadow eater, shadow fathoming form.
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 12:19 AM UTC
I am away
with me...
holidaying--
tightly-scripted
mid a defunct
play.
Incurred props
grow Daniel
Johnston-esque
wings.
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
every day -
hustling and bustling
eating and sleeping
ever week -
Monday to Friday
nine to five
every year -
working and holidaying
waiting and longing
to be free.
May 5, 2021
May 5, 2021 at 3:57 PM UTC
I traveled almost everywhere, growing up. It took years. The landscapes, flora and fauna, the art, music, cuisines and curse words all seem to blend together in my mind.
Mount Fuji, the Rhine, the Himalayas, the Chattahoochee, Shenzhen, Washington DC, the Alps, and Appalachians, Moscow, Beijing, Dublin, Portland, Paris, Atlanta, London, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Rome, Wuhan, Berlin, the Yangtze, the Mississippi, Saint-Tropez and LA - are all jumbled up in my brain, like old, wrinkled maps in a glove compartment.
My mom has total recall - she can remember every day of her life since her mama handed her a faded yellow and blue rattle when she was 6 months old - God gave me the glove compartment.
Still, some things are unforgettable, like an electrical storm breaking around Mt Everest, the lights of New York City, at night, from a helicopter, glittering on the horizon like a queen’s crown. The Danube, from a riverboat under a too-bright moon and the elegant poverty of Italy.
In some ways, I grew up like an exile because we moved every couple of years and I’d have to start my social life all over again - usually in a different language. Every place we left seemed a lost paradise, and each new place seemed cold and harsh.
Speaking of home to harsh transitions, November recess is over and we’re back in New Haven - with two weeks before final exams. Welcome to exhaustion week (weeks).
This morning I started going through my syllabuses, and after a week of holidaying - they seemed like indecipherable relics from a different world, a world of papers, tests and stingy-fun. I’ve so many things to wrap-up, my brain can’t seem to contain them all, I’m a gadget that’s out of memory.
I used to take my books on vacation, to remain in the ‘game’ mentally and stay ahead of the grind. Not this time. Hey, growing up, I’ve had my moments of ‘developmentally appropriate’ rebellion - in this case - I wanted memories to hoard, like inoculations against the coming work and loneliness cycles.
Nov 25, 2023
Nov 25, 2023 at 9:07 PM UTC
As cold as another age, wracked with solitude,
A slow start to another beginning,
Unreliable cloud coats the sky
And the sea repetitiously roars in,
Cuffing cliffs,
Pounding rocks
With calamitous roars
Playing endless riffs across the sand.
We walked together down the beach
Troubled by the surf
Chewing on cigarette stubs, sullied by the wind
New ghosts in the half-light
Bearing years like backpacks.
Grown old in the gathering twilight
We chattered together, our footsteps picking
Wounds. Barbed words
Like greetings, cheerfulness like an accusation.
*********** a shared and interesting memory,
We cuddled together in the scouring wind
Enjoying each other’s casual warmth.
It was a time for reflection,
When love is a scab on evolving friendship,
Heartlessness the price of redemption.
The contrived book of your beauty,
The gilded ceramic of expertly rendered features
The undulating film of your gestures, coded and decoded
Through time.
Beauty is finite, crumbling to fleshless reminiscence
Fixed to canvas and celluloid
With tireless labour. In the end, signifying another thing-
Of little interest.
An artist’s casual thought, a director’s cut.
They barely remember your name,
Your laughter and wildness gone, missed by the
Senile artist’s transitory brush,
Clotted with hundred-year-old varnish.
A small house by the sea
Surrounded by flowerbeds sparkling with summer colour
Self-absorbed children, with whom we exchanged affection
And parted from, holidaying in Bangkok
With lovers of all sorts.
As the sea rolled towards us
And evening gave way to night.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 10:09 AM UTC
Is a pain
When playing
Is expected
When rocking
Is wanted
When sowing
Is a menace
When parading
Is too much
When holidaying
Is too little
When deserting
Is amazing
When lightning
Is angry
When thundering
Is just right
When at night.
Dec 2, 2012
Dec 2, 2012 at 7:04 PM UTC
At my brother's for Christmas dinner
Sitting there for a moment I felt suddenly like I was the turkey
I thought they were all looking at me kinda funny
It was like they were licking their lips
And saying "Doesn't he look delicious, a lovely big juicy looking bird
It was like I thought they were thinking
We're not likely to win the lotto (the lottery) at our age
We've never been very lucky that way
The best chance of us getting a windfall of money would be
If dear old Uncle Bardo was to suddenly kick the bucket
Then we'd get his house and all his money
We could give up our day jobs and go holidaying for the rest of our lives
We'd be sliding down Easy Street singing like a bunch of sailors
Wouldn't it be great ?
I thought I better watch out, better watch what I'm eating, what their
giving me
Next time I better bring a food tester/taster along with me
You never know, life is strange.
I suppose it works both ways though, my brother's always a bit reluctant to come down to my house
He doesn't think I'm very hygienic, he says he's always afraid he'll get food poisoning.
I guess it's all just...just in the family.
Aug 9, 2025
Aug 9, 2025 at 8:45 AM UTC
As cold as another age, wracked with solitude,
A slow start to another beginning,
Unreliable cloud coats the sky
And the sea repetitiously roars in,
Cuffing cliffs,
Pounding rocks
With calamitous roars
Playing endless riffs across the sand.
We walked together down the beach
Troubled by the surf
Chewing on cigarette stubs, sullied by the wind
New ghosts in the half-light
Bearing years like backpacks.
Grown old in the gathering twilight
We chattered together, our footsteps picking
Wounds. Barbed words
Like greetings, cheerfulness like an accusation.
*********** a shared and interesting memory,
We cuddled together in the scouring wind
Enjoying each other’s casual warmth.
It was a time for reflection,
When love is a scab on evolving friendship,
Heartlessness the price of redemption.
The contrived book of your beauty,
The gilded ceramic of expertly rendered features
The undulating film of your gestures, coded and decoded
Through time.
Beauty is finite, crumbling to fleshless reminiscence
Fixed to canvas and celluloid
With tireless labour. In the end, signifying another thing-
Of little interest.
An artist’s casual thought, a director’s cut.
They barely remember your name,
Your laughter and wildness gone, missed by the
Senile artist’s transitory brush,
Clotted with hundred-year-old varnish.
A small house by the sea
Surrounded by flowerbeds sparkling with summer colour
Self-absorbed children, with whom we exchanged affection
And parted from, holidaying in Bangkok
With lovers of all sorts.
As the sea rolled towards us
And evening gave way to night.
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 7:17 PM UTC
There are films, and then there are films that are directed by Luca Guadagnino, set in Italy, starring Tilda Swinton, and featuring wardrobe by Raf Simons during his time at Dior. Released earlier this year, A Bigger Splashmarked Swinton, Guadagnino, and Simons' second film collaboration (the first was I Am Love) — and it made everyone want to go on holiday looking fabulous.
Basically: Swinton plays Marianne Lane, a world-famous rock star holidaying in the sleepy Italian town of Pantelleria. (Right? We know.) Though her character is recovering from throat surgery, which renders her speechless for the entire two hours of film, leave it to Swinton to remain as captivating as ever. Oh, and she's joined by a rather sweaty Matthias Schoenaerts, a wickedly pompous Ralph Fiennes, and a brooding, scantily-clad Dakota Johnson.
If you're unfamiliar with Guadagnino's style, it's filled with long, lingering shots of nature, close-ups of food, silences (and lots of them), sumptuous sceneries, grandiose architecture, and breathtaking styling.
Simons worked with Guadagnino's friend, costume designer Giulia Piersanti, on the wardrobe. She told i-D about the inspiration for Marianne's clothes:
We specifically wanted Marianne Lane, Tilda's character, to be a bit more elegant than her surroundings. It was important for her to have a wardrobe that was a bit over-the-top. In the end it was also important in the acting and portrayal of the character for her to be nonchalant about it and very effortless. She's a star, and she doesn't hide it. Even when she goes out into the piazza, she's a bit overly dressed, like an old movie star would be. She needed to keep that glamour in her wardrobe.
Despite the striking simplicity of Marianne's style (billowing jumpsuits, shirt-dresses, and thong sandals), it's the details that make this film one of the finest examples we've seen of dressing well in the heat. For your viewing pleasure (but still — watch the film), we've selected the most memorable fashion moments. Warning: You will want to do away with all your hot pants, crop your hair, and buy some silver shades, pronto.See more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 3:12 AM UTC
*What is life all about?
Working like a machine.
Holidaying sometimes
and meeting people
we know closely.
But every now and then
With change of the time
Shifting and shuffling
Keeps happening
In and around
To figure out again
what’s mine and yours!
But most unpredictable it is,
to figure out what life is!
-02/07/2017*
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 11:12 AM UTC
As I might have told you
My dad died and came back
To life as Betty
And I live in Canberra
And this weeks betty’s dad
Took Betty and his other two
To Canberra for a visit
Yesterday Betty and her family
Went to cockington green and the dinosaur museum and the national museum
And today Betty went to the national gallery
You see bettys dad David who is into
The arts wanted to show Betty what her previous life Barry Allan was like
Barry was my dad
And he liked arts but more on art history
And he was into other aspects of art
Like music and performing arts
And he liked when I went to
Art shows in the community
And dad wanted David to take them
To Canberra so dad can give his son
Some enjoyment with Betty being in his city
I wonder where David will take his family to tomorrow and the other days
Of their vacation
You see I miss dad
Because some of the things I did with dad
I don’t get now
But I will be doing a show on Christmas and nye on Facebook
I will do a Santa dash on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day where I as Santa
Will show Santa leaving for his present dash and when he gets home
It will be fun
And on nye I will do a poem reading to see out the tragic 2020 year and hope 2021 will be good
I will do it after the big bash or at 10-30 whatever comes first
And it will be on my Facebook page
My Facebook name is Brian Allan
My dad who now is Betty inspired me as well as a lot of other singers like Travis Collins and Elise Courtney etc
Watch me, you will be entertained
And my dad is watching over us while his new family is holidaying in Canberra
Dec 13, 2020
Dec 13, 2020 at 3:51 AM UTC
*Every lounger taken
buckets spades and boards
families doing what families do
on sandy beaches in their hoards,
lashing on the lotion
for protection from the sun
lunches in the chiringuitos
a respite from the fun,
then it´s back to cheering, laughing, screaming,
bats and ***** and floats
splashing in the breaking waves
with plastic rings and rubber boats,
but now the shadows lengthen
the burning sun sinks to the sea
everyone is packing up
and heading back for tea,
the sunset shining glorious
the beach lit up with amber glow
saffron skies as the evening tires
and the pace begins to slow,
the beach is now deserted
as I stroll along the shore
beneath my feet the cooling sand
to my left the oceans roar,
a silver moon lights up the sky
and shines a path across the sea
a tranquil way to close the day
just a summer breeze and me,
come the morn it´s back to the norm
for the holidaying hoards
some lying bronzing in the sun
others surfing multi coloured boards,
every lounger will be taken
as another day unfolds
tomorrow on their flights back home
their holidaying stories will be told*.
Note : Chiringuito = Beach Bar/Restaurant.
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 9:25 AM UTC
they've got no flavour
they've got no soul
they got no oumf-
they whimper on in a magicless fashion
like it's all been laid before
again and again, word after word
made of magic, every one of them they say
i don't buy much of anything they say
they can throw words like water cascading down rocks in waterfalls
and play on me until i'm red and raw,
but i don't see the magic in it
like a crawling on the skin
they all reek of arrogance with their 'finesse'
and they're dancing, like tongues around the dinner table
slapping away at happy faces, ******* without touching
crying without tears, asking without caring
i'm used to it by now, as sad as it seems
the proverbial ******* that we get everyday
although no actual ******* has been had
lawyers and school teachers alike
they all get theirs,
they slowly push in their throbbing manhood
with their, "how have you been?"
which of course - is just a form of foreplay
after that is when the real ******* begins
"me and Jerry have been holidaying in Peru"
which each word getting closer and closer to the ******
and when it's over and done they discard you
like some cheap emotional ******
i avoid them now, in bars and cars
and shops and homes, at parties and at all places
whenever i see a good ******* i know what it is
i smile and watch.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 10:18 PM UTC