06-16-2026, 01:45 AM
edit-- apologies this half a new poem, and for the extra edits-- won't be anymore:
The front was all harshness, grey and jagged sea;
Stone, stung ears, a lone bar of rock cast off in water.
Salt pelted white villas,
Misplaced as though they were in Spain, keeping out the sun,
Only for gulls to pace by greasy cardboard
As lightbulbs swung, leaching colour.
A gull dove once;
Its lifeless eyes peered right at us.
I told my father it wanted my plaice,
Which looked golden, folded in crimped notes of batter.
They were crafty too:
Used their webbing to drum upon the Common,
Like rain making things below the dirt come through.
I remember the street ran leeward to a curb,
Where soaked ladies often gathered
so beautifully I saved them dark green bottle shards
Worn to coarse mottled emeralds by the beach—
Which dropped from girls as chinks of frost,
While women flashed me powder cheeks
whose eyeballs softly cannoned
Off my palms to bound the reach.
I found a poor man in fresh fog,
Draping over storm-dragged starfish, in their hundreds,
Maybe thousands, lost aground that once when
We scoured for skeletons,
‘Five-pointed’, he said, bright as cuttlebone,
Or strobe sequins slanting along the pier.
We stirred dull bodies,
How I trawled stale rockpools
for wrack to pinch
like tarred sugar snap peas.
When the weather comes in,
No eye-whites wobble back as you sniff sweet
Rims of slack, knotted jelly.
I mean we found nothing brittle,
Nothing pale to treasure till gulls came
picking the shale bare with us.
I let the hungriest swoop my digging,
So deep I felt squeezed air swell
from wings sheering on an updraft,
Its eyes clinging me
for nothing that I'd held.
Original:
The front was all harshness, grey and jagged sea;
Stone, stung ears, a lone bar of rock cast off in water.
We lived close to white villas,
Misplaced as though they were in Spain, keeping out the sun,
Only for gulls to pace by greasy cardboard
As lightbulbs swung, leaching colour.
A gull dove once;
Its lifeless eyes peered right at us.
I told my father it wanted my plaice,
Which looked golden, folded in crimped notes of batter.
They were crafty too: used their webbing to drum upon the Common,
like rain making things below the dirt come through.
But he smiled, and told me,
‘It can’t tell between the glass and us inside.’
I remember the street ran leeward to a curb,
Where young ladies also gathered.
You never knew their names, but they were so beautiful
I wanted to give them the dark green bottle shards
Worn to coarse mottled emeralds by the beach.
But more than the little girls, who dropped the glassy chinks aloud,
I couldn’t face the glancing smiles,
Which skipped and swivelled to the wash,
Or shone their glistening teeth aground,
And gently lost my gaze.
I once saw through our window,
A poor man pace too,
Before he slipped the corner of my eye.
But I knew if, quickly, I reached the sill,
My sightline could catch him
From our vantage, close the gap,
Wind him in
From the stricken rocks
and endless, curling water chops,
Past footfall by the Common’s grass,
Where features swirl the promenade,
Past smitten cheeks blushed with cold,
Their colour kept in mantle folds,
To facets vaunting, from our road,
My searching glimpse through our…
Still, it never winds back to me,
His soft vagrant stare,
At home, Out there,
Stolen far off to sea.
The front was all harshness, grey and jagged sea;
Stone, stung ears, a lone bar of rock cast off in water.
Salt pelted white villas,
Misplaced as though they were in Spain, keeping out the sun,
Only for gulls to pace by greasy cardboard
As lightbulbs swung, leaching colour.
A gull dove once;
Its lifeless eyes peered right at us.
I told my father it wanted my plaice,
Which looked golden, folded in crimped notes of batter.
They were crafty too:
Used their webbing to drum upon the Common,
Like rain making things below the dirt come through.
I remember the street ran leeward to a curb,
Where soaked ladies often gathered
so beautifully I saved them dark green bottle shards
Worn to coarse mottled emeralds by the beach—
Which dropped from girls as chinks of frost,
While women flashed me powder cheeks
whose eyeballs softly cannoned
Off my palms to bound the reach.
I found a poor man in fresh fog,
Draping over storm-dragged starfish, in their hundreds,
Maybe thousands, lost aground that once when
We scoured for skeletons,
‘Five-pointed’, he said, bright as cuttlebone,
Or strobe sequins slanting along the pier.
We stirred dull bodies,
How I trawled stale rockpools
for wrack to pinch
like tarred sugar snap peas.
When the weather comes in,
No eye-whites wobble back as you sniff sweet
Rims of slack, knotted jelly.
I mean we found nothing brittle,
Nothing pale to treasure till gulls came
picking the shale bare with us.
I let the hungriest swoop my digging,
So deep I felt squeezed air swell
from wings sheering on an updraft,
Its eyes clinging me
for nothing that I'd held.
Original:
The front was all harshness, grey and jagged sea;
Stone, stung ears, a lone bar of rock cast off in water.
We lived close to white villas,
Misplaced as though they were in Spain, keeping out the sun,
Only for gulls to pace by greasy cardboard
As lightbulbs swung, leaching colour.
A gull dove once;
Its lifeless eyes peered right at us.
I told my father it wanted my plaice,
Which looked golden, folded in crimped notes of batter.
They were crafty too: used their webbing to drum upon the Common,
like rain making things below the dirt come through.
But he smiled, and told me,
‘It can’t tell between the glass and us inside.’
I remember the street ran leeward to a curb,
Where young ladies also gathered.
You never knew their names, but they were so beautiful
I wanted to give them the dark green bottle shards
Worn to coarse mottled emeralds by the beach.
But more than the little girls, who dropped the glassy chinks aloud,
I couldn’t face the glancing smiles,
Which skipped and swivelled to the wash,
Or shone their glistening teeth aground,
And gently lost my gaze.
I once saw through our window,
A poor man pace too,
Before he slipped the corner of my eye.
But I knew if, quickly, I reached the sill,
My sightline could catch him
From our vantage, close the gap,
Wind him in
From the stricken rocks
and endless, curling water chops,
Past footfall by the Common’s grass,
Where features swirl the promenade,
Past smitten cheeks blushed with cold,
Their colour kept in mantle folds,
To facets vaunting, from our road,
My searching glimpse through our…
Still, it never winds back to me,
His soft vagrant stare,
At home, Out there,
Stolen far off to sea.