Tag: sea

Poem ‘At Cromer’

At Cromer

When I look down toward the beach,
the distant pier seems to stride
forward from the shining sea.
I like to look beyond,
to the bands of turquoise and blue,
an ocean painted in bold,
abandoned strokes.

Why are we drawn to the waves?
Those elemental rhythms,
sounds and colours
of a primary world,
where sparse pointillist spots
busy themselves on
yellow-ochre sands.

Some days the morning
unfolds through mists,
groynes spacing out
the distances along the strand,
until a final fade-out,
well before the sea
can meet the sky.

Overhead, pterodactyl shapes
patrol against fresh patches
of blue. As I approach,
the blurred semblances
of buildings appear, rectangles
feathered violet or grey,
as if stepping off the cliff.

© copyright df barker 2011, first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available for purchase here: http://liten.be//gHmf9

*Painting from an original, digitally enhanced.

Poem ‘Woman from the West’

Woman from the West

You’d awoken me with tea in the spare bed,
where my feet hung out the end.
At breakfast we heard about the pier,

smashed by the savage storm, the worst for years.
It was early December with heavy skies threatening,
so we wrapped up warm to take some air,

scarves blowing, my arm around your waist
feeling your locomotion, the buttock’s rise and fall
with that playful goose-step, your natural stride.

Through the lichgate, we passed graves old and
one very new. We stopped by wreaths, with thoughts
for a boy of no age. Found him in a ditch, you said,

in blasé exaggeration. No Christmas this year.
Not for them, but did it bother us?
Your life lay ahead, sampling life in London,

as lethal as the sea stallions pummelling that pier.
Now my eyes were open. That walk wasn’t playful
but callous, and the tea seemed like a gesture.

So when we left the wreaths, I felt changed.
Wreaths for that poor boy and for us.
Not for love.

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011

* First published in 2011 in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’.

** The illustrations are from a 1990s drawing of a Lincolnshire Church, and a more recent painting of a couple on Cromer beach in North Norfolk, England. CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO SEE BIGGER SIZE!

Poem: ‘The Painter’

The Painter

Climbing the dune,
wind heavy in our faces.
We squint (or do we smile?),
our laughs and quips
diffuse in the air.

Young legs carry you
ahead to the summit,
where tufts of green cling
to an existence. Then you’re
a sudden lithe silhouette

against a racing sky.
I revel in your victory;
your gentle hand hauls me
up close to ocean eyes,
an elfin smile, teeth

pristine like breakers
on the distant, crashing
shore, that white noise
filling our ears.
To look into you

is to look as men
have done for centuries.
Unchanging heart,
you’re the pearl left
nestling in filth.

So take a look –
can anyone steal time?
An hour here or there,
we leave our footprints,
no foothold anywhere.

I am the painter of this shore –
you are the model.
Again and again,
we return to wrestle
in familiar hues;

deep alizarin crimson,
yellow ochre, phthalo blue,
making it real. Stay in this
moment, we bless and bless.
It has to be you.

© copyright Francis

* Taken from the collection ‘Anonymous Lines’

The illustration is from a larger painting of a scene overlooking the North Sea, from sand dunes at Wells Next The Sea, Norfolk, England.

New Poem ‘Morning List’

Morning List

Aromas of snuffed out candles
A new bar of soap
The fix of fresh black coffee
A warm fruit teacake
smothered in melting butter

First sight and smell
of the salty sea

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011

Poem ‘Witness’

Witness

Deep in the darkest place
we feel a faint memory is
lurking unbound like a freeze
on the fast spinning world
a rare sight for we strangers
from the far flung parts
of tenuous space

We must have strolled
those ragged shores
leaving no footprints in the sand
and breathed in deep
the unbreathable air
before sentient life could
crawl out from the sea

We saw the infant sun spill
his light over jagged horizons
and a shattered moon
ascend into sparse skies
to ride across that curious
scatter of stars

Was it us who fostered
the mortal pain of eons?
And did we sanction suffering
from simplicity to sublimity
all borne through this weary flux?

That we were witness
when it began – is true
We will persist to its end
to see star stuff blasted out
when it all starts over again

© copyright Francis Barker 2011

* I’ve had a version of this poem hanging around since I was about 17. This is the latest incarnation and I’m still not satisfied.
* The ‘painting’ is a ‘photoshopped’ adaptation from another painting.