Kathleen

In this tempestuous Spring I'm spinning

untethered, buffeted and way off course, of course. 

These searing winds bring new beginnings, 

weather muffling their message into Morse.

Rat a tat tat! It's only that 

I can't work out where the letters start and end.

It's murky down there. You'd better be smart and bend

your knees to prevent 

the seas reaching you.

Roll with each roll,

you can't control it.

Ten tonnes of emotional ballast beneath us,

we wait for the skies to clear.

I Just Might

 It calls to me at night.

The soothing hush is no match,

for the draw of the same pulse and roar.

It mesmerises with its might.

And I might, (I just might)

slip off down the alley,

bed-robed and barefoot,

pick over obstacles, 

ghostfaced and quiet

to arrive tea in hand to:

the bench on the harbour.

The distant clang of buoys,

the slaps of seductive slop

against darkened hulls.

The water is black and so is my desire to jump;

to swim, my flukes guttering in the moonlight.

Master Frank lolls, experience bestowed 

and impossible to surprise,

but young Sea Pie of Cultra stirs;

once sleeping eyes now peephole wide 

at spying Poseidon’s Daughter.

The water calls to pour down delighted spine,

shivers controlled by a peaceful mind.

Sensation of flying freely sublime.

Expansion of perception and deceptive passage of time.

The sea is all loving, all taking, all giving.

I am it and we are we

but duty calls me back to shore.

My tea is cold.

My cigarette: ashes.

My odious feet and unforgivable legs are numb.

Land sick, land locked, land thrown.

Gravity greedily reclaims my blubbersome, goose pimpled flesh

I stumble home; graceless, ungainly, exhausted.

Guiding unwilling, unnatural limbs up stairs of all things!

But, to bed; satiated, salinated, and sanctified.

 Suffocated

by the solidity 

of the Earth. 

The Belle of Bulgham Bay

This verdant,  windswept spit of land
Ringed around with golden sands
Tended by MecLir 's right hand
Where magic makes its final stand.
Curlews cries,
Enormous skies,
Phynodderree in poor disguise
Mooinger veggey in Elfin Glen
Preserved til now from way back when.
Cashtal yn Ard, the sacred ground,
Silkies surfing at The Sound.

The lady I'd like to discuss with you now
has been cruelly misnamed as a sea cow,
by sailors sloshed on rationed rum
I'm not sure how else this siren would become
such a lumberous beast. She's more the sea sparra.
She is the Belle of Bulgham Bay, the beautiful Ben Varrey.

Now, memories made
when families play
In millpond waves
on sunny days
Often come at hidden cost,
I mean, how many earrings have you lost?
How many individual socks,
How many flip, but no more flop?

When you've baked your brain you know you can't trust it,
Distracted by sand in your toes and your gusset,
You picked up the spade, you picked up the bucket,
But you always leave something behind.

These tiny trinkets, swallowed by tide,
Make for glorious mermaid finds,
Out at Maughold she's a cave that's filled with wondrous things.
Buttons, brooches, bonnets, buckles; the bounty high tide brings.
She's got spectacles and hearing aids, dentures and toupees
But these oh so personal items are not lost, in fact they're saved.
In the Curiosities of Terra Firma Museum they are all exhibits.
And it's helping to explain some eccentric human habits.
Creatures come from distant oceans to educate themselves
on the ways of the grotesque flesh folk. Entrance costs two shells.
The Belle of Bulgham Bay is rightly proud of her collection
But she keeps a secret stash of her special selections.
In here she keeps the sandals, flip flops,
Workmen's boot, verruca socks,
Toe rings in particular are impossible to resist.
You see, the Belle of Bulgham Bay is a foot fetishist.
It all began when she was young,
Angsty, teenaged, spotty.
She saw a flip flop floating by,
A bit unbleached and grotty.
The imprints of the toes were clear
On polystyrene foam,
Stroked the ridges, mesmerised.
She felt her heart unfold.

So on this verdant windswept spit of land, &
When walking barefoot on the sand
Domt be surprised if a clammy white hand
Reaches out
AND GRABS YOU!!

Anti-Shanty

We all sing the songs of souls lost at sea

and preserve in musical amber memories.

But what of the land-bound in fishermen’s towns,

Now the fish are all dead and the industry’s down?

These boatmen more solid on liquid than land

on coal-littered beach front at sunset they stand.

Watch while their mistress is tossing her waves.

Greying and gloomy. She resents what she gave.

Now she casts off the covenant and keeps all the catch

and the sails in the harbour are folded or slack.

Lobster pots line up, empty in the sun,

while their salted-faced owner silently burn.

For it’s pints they are downing

to tribute the drowning

of another in whiskey not sea.

For they know where they’re going,

it’s their own path he’s showing

a way out of their own misery.

The swallows that flit through the cherry blossom trees

know the sea demands her tithe ev’ry fifteen years.

She lowers the pressure and hitches her skirt.

Swishing them wildly unbuttons her shirt,

booming with laughter she rolls on the shore

and demands that more businesses pay her, and more.

Her revenge for her rape is undeniable and savage

for hell hath no fury like an ecosystem ravaged

The touch of the hull on her skin is well met

but behind these caresses is an anchor of debt.

She gives life and takes life; some later, some soon

changeable as wind direction, reliable as moon.

People flocked to pay homage in sunny days gone by

but they’ve mostly stopped coming since the monkeys learned to fly

and now the town relies on hand outs and the landing stage is closed

and they’ve paved over history with a red brick road.

The people left land locked pay their dues in installments

of barometric infirmity and camphor-based liniment.

Crippled by ozone and scattered by squall.

They yearn when they hear the Wind Maidens call.

It’s a lifetime of hardship and internal fights

when the wind’s from the West and the bells ring at night.

But the Goddess takes all, every bit in the end.

Either swallows with love, or starves and contends.

And if

you ask if in this contract they willingly took part

They’d say

They’d give it all again. Body, soul and heart.