Dekoboko

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Typhoon

The hatches are battened, but the boat’s gone
The road’s flooded and blocked
Drain’s suck and manholes spew
The warm wind whips bottles and branches
Scattered skimming through the streets

The sea's let loose a raging giant
Thrashing thin breakwaters with careless contempt
Three-storey waves crash over beach houses
I'm soaked in my tracks, my trousers drenched
And my socks are full of sand

Feelings about bringing my baby son back home, as a young adult -
and should add my behaviour - was I idiotic to try to save Sakuma's son's house - 2 people died after all. Was I an idiot to then check out the boat - and quite get myself drowned? But I couldn't stay inside - I wanted, had to, needed to do something - I had to be alive - I couldn't just sit back inside and watch it all happen later on TV - above all I wanted to be part of this - no-one could say 'Where were you?'

The Beast

Staggering green waves roar like thunder,
spraying salt-sequined showers in the Sun -

Pulsing like heartbeats from the dark deep.

Ecstatic small children squeal in delight -
'Daddy, can't we stay a bit longer?
Can’t we please? Let’s not go home!’

While unexpectedly fast, predatory foam
Licks at their quick back-pedalling feet,
Chasing up the beach to their smiling Mum -

And the sea seethes back, taking its breath.
A tsunami went over the horizon last night -
This savage same sea hit Samoa and Tonga,

where, satiated, she dragged them under.
The tranquil life-giver can turn from the good

to an indiscriminate bringer of death.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Over the bar

Crossing the bar (Tennyson)

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcTyIaYLQqo&feature=PlayList&p=10A77F15B24E6F9F&index=13&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

I spent my teenage years,
and later a full-grown man,
messing about in boats in Salcombe,
south Devon, the South Hams.

Where the river finally hits the sea,
there's a sand bar across the bay -
at low tide less than a human height.
Crossed it more times than I can say -

Hundreds, maybe more, in small boats,
with friends, brothers, or alone.
We went mackerel fishing in the evening sun
- one night came home with 60 or so -

Or was it 80?
And sold them round the park for 10p each.
With our father.

Years later we poured his ashes over the bar.