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 …

SPREADEAGLED

Bucharest,



Spread-eagled and naked

in her crop circle -

this one in a sunflower field:

she’s a wheel of limbs,

some sort of a *******

lusted after by the seed heavy

flowers bowing to her curves

like drooling surgeons.



She’s finished with running,

waiting for the fading light

to join the last of her loves,

faded with processed proclamations

of undying certainty

which were a little worse for wear

after courting

and checked into intensive care

soon after.



Love thought it had

ducked its obligations,

passed again

like a heavy goods train in the night,

shunted across the border

while guards waved it on;

interested only in sleep or beer.



But this time she’s making sure

love returns,

pays its duty and dues

and hits its target.



So, splayed

aryan and vigorous,

apeing a pagan

resurrection,

she waits

for the skydiver

who – with precision

confidence – happens

to be bearing down

on her charity target,

slowly filling her

with his ***** shadow.



She sunbathes under mirrors,

she’s a real

tough nut to crack.

I repeat myself into her.

1)
See, **** Susan is on holiday
and she's made her way
to the hotel roof
on her second day
**** Susan takes off her dress
and in her bikini
she sunbathes on the roof
"Ah, this is the life," she says
"The sun and the roof all to myself"

2)
See, **** Susan on her third day
this time
sunbathing stark naked
on the roof
and she turns over
with her buttocks to the sky
and the native  hotel bellboy
comes running up
and panting
and from an official distance he says:
"Madam, I humbly beg you
put on bikini at least
like you did yesterday"

And see **** Susan smirking
and she says:
"What's the problem,  kid?
No one's gonna see me here"

"But madam," says the cringing native
*"You are lying face down
on our high-tech one-way vision
dining-hall skylight roof"

She is growing, overcoming her weaknesses and shortcomings. As she sunbathes between the trails of wheatgrass she wonders, how could she shine brightest just like the rays of the Sunlight.

I’m having naked thoughts
Lacking guilt or put upon
Stripping my imagination bare
Without a stitch, my vision sunbathes
**** and unadulterated
Soaking in clean, clear, fresh
On rock by riverside of mind’s eye
Tingling with musing sensation
View my in the buff inklings
Nothing naughty about it
I am pure creative power
Raw envisage
Breezy suggestion titillates
You just had to look
Didn’t you?

1
Tommy’s little, sure, but he’s
getting to that age
when he understands a little more
picking up things as his parents
take him shopping;
and hearing and seeing things
at home, in the backyard
and in the streets

2
but today poor Tommy
is caught in class
he’s about to explode
and he’s controlled it the last hour

“Please, miss,” he has the *****
to say it after all
“I need go ****!”

“You’re not going,”
says the pedantic Miss,
“until you use in a complete sentence
the proper English word
for your urge:
URINATE”

Poor Tommy –
he’s got the *****, but does
he have the brains?

Tommy thinks hard for a while -
one hand on his head
one hand on his pants
and then he blurts out:
*“YOU ARE AN EIGHT
and Mrs Smith next door
who sunbathes naked in her courtyard
LOOKS LIKE A TEN. Now, can I go?”

Without a doubt
The faith was lost
Below the salt.

Dawn's eyes
Not so much Viridian,
Slightly less...
Herbal.
Dusk swims up its favorite tree
And collapses
Dead as death.

Dragon's Breath
Cascades the mountainside
In
Red fury.

The Sun sweats
U.V. afterbirth,
Drought frenzy,
And carmine fissures.
Flooding eyelids,
And my minds eye.

Ethereal starkness
Sunbathes in the
Sundries
Of a maniac.

Dance lessons began at six p.m.

Martha said she would come,
And then,
At the last second
She bailed…
And sent her friend,
The soprano who lives above her,
The wild one with the parrot,
Who sunbathes in her underwear,
As her replacement.

My name is Alexandra the friend said
And offered me her hand to kiss.

Then I will expect great things from you, I replied,
And drew her body close to me
In a nose to nose, cha-cha embrace.

Are you always so obvious,
She asked me,
Especially in this day and age.

I am a defiant breed I replied,
A man who truly loves to dance.

What you should know
is that I’ve never done parties,
except that wasn’t quite a party,
more an excuse to liquor up
in the first week back,
tepid attempts to recall the faces
who swam past a year before
like scarecrows from a car, expressionless
in a chaos of fields.

Told this was integration
but anywhere else would’ve done,
mumbles like distant storms
behind closed doors,
footsteps a high echoed chime up the stairs.

The room, a tumble-dryer of conversation.
A brown drink, probably ***, or coke, or vinegar,
somehow navigated to my hand.
A pilfered traffic cone in the corner,
playing cards slapdash on the coffee table,
forgotten hearts, fading diamonds.

Somebody spoke, a game began.
Spilling secrets, unwillingly or too drunk
to care otherwise,
each hopscotch-like laughter another
thorn of headache.
I zoned out as if watching the shopping channels,
palms peppered with the braille
of my nails mining into my hands.

The spreadsheet of names scrolled down,
guys with over-gelled hair, ******* shirts
then me, trickling out my half-hearted truth,
quickly dismissed, knocked to the curb,
my social status cemented once again.
Then you, the last to speak
in this merry-go-round
clouted me awake as though coma free.

o Lychee-pink fingernails, slushie-blue eyes.
o Seashell necklace, skin several sunbathes down.
o Hush of a French accent, denim jeans punctured with holes.

The images, the speech came quick
as if behind the glass of a bullet train.
I tried to capture them like a cat
hopping up for dragonflies,
but these were more like snowflakes
perishing on my tongue.

If my mind hadn’t been frazzled
with the intricacies of anxiety
I would have uttered my name,
snaffled yours, an early birthday gift,
but no.

The evening capsized, us students dispersed
like birds barked at by a dog,
the clock’s downcast dialogue
of time gone, opportunities missed.

I stayed awake with the shape of your face
as though viewed through cellophane.
You mattered somehow, electrocution
right into my brain, your secret swallowed
by the ghosts of the night.
Hell, I thought, resting with my vivid
fabrications until the next day, the next year.