The sea, tea, and me. - pipTalk Forums

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Redstart
Senior Member

since 2014-05-16

Posts 535

0 posted 2014-12-18 10:31 AM

Alfresco musings, collar high to cool moist air,
overlooking a mortuary sea he sits.
Melancholy mists merging
the most despairing of days,
unifying land and sea.

Art Deco, yellow-railed balconies offer
a glimpse of yesterday colour,
but even they mourn, ashamed of their birth;
rueful children of woeful design.
But the yellow stirs the memory,
selling scents of headland gorse,
teasings of sweet, summer coconut.

Yet still, the sun sulks weary today,
unwilling to battle bottomless cloud.
The headland, no longer that
strutting soldier of fortune,
now he sulks, a vagrant,
cloaked and hooded into a sullen, grey Atlantic.

A quartet of voracious gulls vie for
the elixir of life in the sodden litter
of a drizzled-night's leftovers.
At least that appears their quest.
Survival?.... Or simply greed?
Certainly no: 'After you, no please, after you.'
Seems we have the whole, mirror-hogging
smugness when it comes to manners.
We'd be as gulls in the blink of a starving eye.

The table, the tea, a slow-stirring spoon.
The damp sand on wet shoes.
A downward looking eyeline,
restricting conversation to an intrinsic,
reworked ventriloquy.

He signs an initial in the sugar.
It fades just as surely as it did
to the dying thrust of an honest wave.

latearrival
Member Ascendant

since 2003-03-21

Posts 5499
Florida

1 posted 2014-12-18 06:30 PM

I have come back to read this two times and I picture the Art Deco of Miami and can watch the gulls eating greedily as you mention. In the end, yes if starving, we will all push and pull to find our fill and will stoop to behavior we would have never thought of. Out of someone's hands if it becomes necessary. A mixture of beauty and sadness in my mind, but Well written. Enjoyed, Jo Perry

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

2 posted 2014-12-18 07:12 PM

I had to smile. "Write with words people can understand" I'm told. I like "big" words! LOL...

Enjoyed this very much!

katahdin
Senior Member

since 2010-07-01

Posts 1196
ME. In the Shadow of the Mt.

3 posted 2014-12-19 02:49 AM

Enjoyed very much!
Kat >^..^<

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

4 posted 2014-12-19 08:50 AM

Every word of this is soaked in the ambiance of sorrow, regret, longing, loss and the weight of inevitability - and swirled into a beauty beyond compare. Poetry doesn't get better than this masterpiece.

Owl

Redstart
Senior Member

since 2014-05-16

Posts 535

5 posted 2014-12-20 10:48 AM

Thank you all, and everyone who has read or commented on my posts. A Merry Christmas to you, and all at PIP X

Margherita
Member Seraphic

since 2003-02-08

Posts 22236
Eternity

6 posted 2014-12-20 11:14 AM

quote:
He signs an initial in the sugar.
It fades just as surely as it did
to the dying thrust of an honest wave.

This is truly impressive. I fully agree with Owl's comment, couldn't say it any better.

Excellent rendering of the atmosphere. It draws the reader in and stirs reflections.

Margherita

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