The near naked bodies
Purple brown
Loll near the cafes and beach:
Downy, vacant
The next wave licks at their feet:
The sunshine clips their beauty
Their sheer weightlessness
Shimmers like a mirage
In the crushed autumn air.
A towel, some thongs
The sea close at hand
Their loud voices
Spill over from their morning brews
Their disarray, like a siren song
Inspires worship:
Supple
Cheeky
Flirtatious.
Age has yet to crease their pert beauty
Though puppy fat now stalks their bones.
They shower lazily under the communal waters
The sand like salt tabling at their feet:
Each exquisite day
Begets the gaze and amble
Of paradise down under
Lulling all unformed souls
To float upon the blue green strand.
Splashing each other with childish joy
Enervated worshipping the sun
They soon lean against the wall
And await the next sensation
Mock-aping the bold and the beautiful:
How can one worry about the world
When endless sun
Fills belly and flesh
With the surfeit of consumption?
How might this lotus land
With its devious equality
Deal with the rumble and heft of climate change
When happiness and humour no longer suffice
To lick away the wounds that will not heal:
Except to say
That all this doubled edged humour
May yet flick the tongue
Into action and thoughtfulness.
I wonder at this wistful thinking
And the blur of beautiful bodies
That wends its way
Down the hill
To the beach, to the sea
And its rising trail:
O beauteous land
O perilous waves -
Shall the world keep you safe?
Gar Jones: March 2017
Purple brown
Loll near the cafes and beach:
Downy, vacant
The next wave licks at their feet:
The sunshine clips their beauty
Their sheer weightlessness
Shimmers like a mirage
In the crushed autumn air.
A towel, some thongs
The sea close at hand
Their loud voices
Spill over from their morning brews
Their disarray, like a siren song
Inspires worship:
Supple
Cheeky
Flirtatious.
Age has yet to crease their pert beauty
Though puppy fat now stalks their bones.
They shower lazily under the communal waters
The sand like salt tabling at their feet:
Each exquisite day
Begets the gaze and amble
Of paradise down under
Lulling all unformed souls
To float upon the blue green strand.
Splashing each other with childish joy
Enervated worshipping the sun
They soon lean against the wall
And await the next sensation
Mock-aping the bold and the beautiful:
How can one worry about the world
When endless sun
Fills belly and flesh
With the surfeit of consumption?
How might this lotus land
With its devious equality
Deal with the rumble and heft of climate change
When happiness and humour no longer suffice
To lick away the wounds that will not heal:
Except to say
That all this doubled edged humour
May yet flick the tongue
Into action and thoughtfulness.
I wonder at this wistful thinking
And the blur of beautiful bodies
That wends its way
Down the hill
To the beach, to the sea
And its rising trail:
O beauteous land
O perilous waves -
Shall the world keep you safe?
Gar Jones: March 2017