Swimming Pool Poems 1

I wrote a little collection of poems whilst in France, with a diet of one a day, written whilst sitting on a sun lounger and occasionally hurling myself into the pool. Here's the first instalment:

August 8^th 2011

inkblot

after the pen-lift

it is still

veining out

into its Antarctica

August 9^th 2011

les orangers

for Rob and Theresa

stilled

in a heart-light blue gaze

under trees

bunched with bees and berries

in a garden

of throat-pink songbursts

August 10^th 2011

Portrait of Andy Reading ‘Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power’ by Robert Dallek (On A Lilo)

you drift on words

which form in wind and water

spooling phrases slip off

and over each other, lithe as eels

lit for a second

they flit in parallel

darning themselves

into their new wet world

with each new page

the word-eels congregate

their liquid tussle making

a dark door beneath you

August 12^th 2011

Early Evening Swim, Antibes

on your back, you’re a sweet self-crucifixion in salt

the church sucks its bells like boiled sweets

shadows long for their beginnings

the horizon wells up, more water than mountain

you leave a shape as if you have lain there all night

August 13^th 2011

Love Song To A Sun-Umbrella By A Mistaken Bee

oh Bright ZigZag GianteSS

GoddeSS of bloodberry and polkadot

I lovelorn fumble in your SkirtS

you taste –

                       unuSual

August 13^th 2011

Dream No. 1:

A barn owl asks for milk

with his pebble-clack beak:

I steal it from a newsagents

and let him drink, my fingers

in his ruff, airy as whisked egg-whites