Beaks shoved forward, scaly necks stretched,
with mouths gaping, snouts snapping with an echoing snip from
the effort of land crawling just to lay their eggs with
eye-scrunching strain in hopeful clutches.

We stood and marveled with our cameras,
all red eye flashes and whooping fingers,
whilst the tide dragged at the night-time shore
trying to peel away stragglers from the pack of
unwary voyeuristic foreigners.

The musical swish of the wind-rattled palm trees,
made the bobbing fishing boats dance, painted in the yellow
ochre of candle lanterns that perched
like watchmen on the bows where it brushed just
enough of their pilots to make them appear like ghosts
dipping into the blackness as they
flicked out their nets
or dragged wicker pots from the stern.

A world away from this evening; the toes that
joyed at the sucking of sand dampened by the
warm foam of a receding sea curl now into the
unfriendly nylon pile of evening news and TV dramas,
readying for sleep before the chill of
tomorrow’s commute and office politics of
the punch in punch out, don’t-be-late
warning-mornings and the school runs
amongst the young mums parking heedlessly.

Funny how we’re all just turtles on turtle beach.

I often pause to think of others.
Like the couple on Beak Street I saw leaning
in against the March wind, pinching
still-fitting 1970’s smeary gabardine
mackintoshes around them like over-stuffed
sausage casings.

He; gaunt and with that sunken on-the-way
from this life look, she; rotund and
waddling with cheap home perm flattened
under a clear plastic penny market rain
hood whilst her free hand drags a
shopping trolley between them both like
an unruly and unwilling square tartan-coated pet.

She chose to wear those opaque tan tights
and they are so cliche, aren’t they,
with her seen-better-days blue brogue comfortable shoes
which shuffle shuffle and scuff along
next to the groceries and the gray nearly-ghost.

He looks like a man who has resolved to
hang on a day longer if he can, for her
sake, or for someone’s sake if not hers.
I’m sure it’s not for his.

His gaping-mouthed breath, like it
must sound loud enough to startle although
the bus window and the rattle of empty seats
mask it from me, sucks his cheeks in and out
with the effort and I see his eyes scrunch
up unseen as he keeps up her pace which he taps
out with a walking stick, stomp, stomp,
stomp like he is grinding out cigarette butts
with every step.

To where and why do they walk so painfully
in this bouncing rain?  What are their
names?  Is this yesterday’s sour wine of
relationships I see through the dragon puff
of diesel exhaust or a glorious culmination?
Or perhaps mainly their reality, unpoetic and
unremarkable except to someone like me who
often pauses to think of others.

Without you

I’d cry all the tears
realise my worst fears
and exist for existing
be punished everlasting
without you

And I want you to know
Until you’re seconds away
my night beats my day
Makes my me seem unreal
swamps the good things I feel
without you.

So despite all my skills
when our lips meet to kiss
and both our heartbeats miss
I spin wildly in love
flail grasping but I’m
without you.

She is writing to him
and the words are so real
that she feels him inside
and she lets out a squeal
with a shudders a feeling so deep
and wanting to keep
an escape from the direness of
this winter.

He’s off far away,
fighting today?
Risking his life?
Who knows but it’s likely.
She hopes he is safe -
she has planned her escape
abandoning her bigoted husband.

He’s so foreign and different
and odd, but so nice
with those eyes like green ice
and his smile which beams
at the camera,
and his voice, and that accent
and the pictures (he’s naked)
and the thrill of the calls at
her lunchtime.

She wakes extra early to match
his time zone
and sends photos of snow on her car
and he religously checks
all his emails and texts
no matter where fate sends his fortunes.

It’s a cruel twist of fate
that the seas part their ways
and she lies lusting for him
as he sighs, so deeply for her
because together, you know, they’d be perfect.

I want to see the thrill of
little boy’s eyes as they
play poo sticks in the
foment.
Don’t glide like a swan
or be a haven to dragonflies.
Let the reeds settle but make them
an uneasy respite as you rattle
them, shake and scatter them,
swirl about their carefree feet.

Let that flaxen hair waft about;
let it catch on the wind and
blow and flick;
So it flies and whips fast into
unwary eyes.
Let your face glow. Let it shine
and glisten and radiate with life
itself.

And that smile. The giggle and
chuckle, smiley-faced cuddle.
Arms reaching, cheeks peachy.
Melt into me like the warmth of a summer
sunset. Like drinks after dinner.

If I was cast away in a prison
beaten daily, taunted cruelly
til my body was bowed
and my spirit crushed and cowed
my heart would never forsake you.

Even if I was brought to
book on false charges, quite unfair
rent on gallows to swing high
still with my dying sigh
the last slip from my lips would be you.

And when I arrive in heaven
at St Peter’s pearly gates
I shall rest unflinching on one knee
and wait forever in tears for you to join me
because heaven would be hell without you.