Costal Walk.

No bay this but a long narrow line of sand, the spiky dunes holding back the breeze,

To make the walk away from the crowd uncomfortably hot, below medusa sun.

Zig zag to find firm footing on unmapped sands, above the wash of the waves.

Pale sand with white shells, pearl sky and sea tone, parched seaweed.

Small heroic seabirds pit and run on ahead to lure the predator from the nest.

A creek cuts the beach and pours invisibly into the ocean, forcing up sand to form the waves,

Far on, in solitude, a calm stretch of sea tones to purple; strip off, run in and swim.

Salty fizz and cool bliss turns to low fear as the rip tide pulls away from home land.

A visitor in this now cold and fearful element, dumped cargo in the current,

Fear burns to fatigue, slow and steady, to find footing and foolishly naked, wade ashore.

And sit down and be slapped by the shore break and laugh repentantly

At the close call and briny baptism.

Low Tide.

I'd walked out to the point and the tide was still dropping, so I decided to go on around the corner.

I navigated between the mussel beds, not wanting to crush the shells and dodging the little waves that were keen to fill my boots with the winters chill.

The cliffs were key holed with small bays, revealed by the low water, each with a crescent of treasure.

Wood, naturally, and pieces of boat, plastic, glass, weed, live creatures feasting upon the dead.

I slipped on a large flat rock, newly exposed and greasy, I fell hard, hard enough to stun and wind and worse.

I was a long way around and my leg wouldn't cooperate and I realised how solitude can turn to isolation in the time between heartbeats.

It wasn't until I was home that I noticed my watch was missing, the steel bracelet weak against the forces of gravity and stone.

That was a good watch, old and scratched but it kept precise time, the second hand would reach the hour in time with the pips.

And I still look for it when we get around the corner among the mussel beds.

Et in Arcadia Ego.

I had chased an absconding swarm of bees through the bush

Past the ancient puriri tree up onto the ridge.

They were nowhere to be seen or heard.


Returning home I was surprised to see Stafford sprawled under the pohutakawa

Lazily resting in the shade in the heat of the day, we talked.

A month later Stafford lay sprawled dead, from a fall, not far from the same spot,


He too had been in the land of joy and beauty.

In Hydro.

Going in, the deep humid smell of the swimming pool

And the timeless, ringing echo of childish shriek and splash,

Can't compete with the changing room stink of piss and perfume.

No hero here. No high dive,

Or kilometres of freestyle before breakfast.

A mid afternoon interlude of convalescence in hydro.

The physiotherapist, siren like, encourages from the shore

The already wrecked bodies trapped in the shallows.

Smoke.

Industrial and

Diesel from double deckers.

Woodbine single, from a jar.

Coal fire, thick and crusted, lit with a spill.

Leaving the smoking chimneys of old Europe.


No smoking on the aeroplane.


Woodburner with a window (fume with a view).

The Buddha  smoke of unenlightenment followed

Turkish tobacco.

Gorse fire to set wet willow,

Acetylene ploughs plumes from iron,

Propane burns a green genie from bronze.


And now the bellows billow smoke from sackcloth to

Work the bees and

Make ash and honey.