The Lazy Sunbathers

And Other Poems

The Lazy Sunbathers

Casual meanderings of lazy sunbathers
sipping tequila as the world burns
the same shade as bright sunshine
on sluggish summer days which stretch —

forever,
swimming in lethargic seas,
indolent days of redundancy
in blessed languid uncertainty.

Distantly the world ends softly,
greeted with a voracious yawn,
why watch the news when sunshine rays
blast a million lives to fall.

Swimming pools sing like sirens
to the uncertain sea, shimmering
glamour with bright lights dreaming,
memories just an oasis for our future.

We could have done something
but empty bucket lists ticked off
with barely even the gentlest sigh,
but of course, we never asked why.

Sluggish summer days stretch forever,
into the sea, you and me, watch
our futures float out with the tides,
summer dreams drifting home again.

---

April Shadows

“If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken’d death!”
Othello, Act II, Sc. I

It was actually quite nice in a way,
the raw power of nature,
blowing all our dreams away.

To witness first hand our frailty
in the face of violent rain,
hurricanes denying all safety.

Realise our true place in life,
a ferocious gust of gale away
from strange passing to the afterlife.

There are more Lego figures than humans,
there are more memories than future,
watch us catch fire as shadows illumine.

Nature always finds a way to survive eventually,
will we still find a place in this world, confidentially?

---

Lemon in a World of Oranges

I was never sweet, I always preferred sour,
loved to refresh the world with bitter delights
rather than luxuriate in sugary saccharine.
I lived a life so bright and beautifully bold,
yellow in a world turned obvious and orange.
My zest the perfect weapon for sickly sweet,
wallowing in the surprisingly memorable,
belligerently acidic, even cynically complete.
Energetically tangy, fruity and squeezy,
flawed not bitter, breezy never bettered.
Painfully aware of the flaws of this world
in every squeeze of drizzle, cake and meringue,
underappreciated as lavender and lime,
pucker up buttercup, it’s lemon time.

---

The Sieve and the Sand Child

Every step on sand takes me back to childhood,
every grain a memory, my history, my past,
always there in every moment of every day,
building blocks like giant sandcastles aimed
towards azure skies, cloudless and impossible.
Flawless futures whispered in a fever dream,
mesmerising and forgetting, the person
we should have been, lost in turning tides
anxious to return to sea, before we even returned
home. Life is a crowded beach, but we forget
to play, kites downed, waves lost, too much
to do, too little time to lie and watch awhile.
Too little time to observe perfect seas wash away
your weary heart, a memory of you, euphoric.