Photograph by Chris Sims
Lots of submissions this time for the above photograph and from the shortlist the readers have chosen Not Quite Warm Enough to Swim by Sue Spiers. Thanks to everyone who entered and voted.
And so..
And so to Summer time,
and the chance meetings
which make memory…the
“Do you remember when…?
Well that’s amazing!
Who’d have thought
that you would have known her…!
..be his cousin!”
..be the good friend of my good
friend all those years ago”..
..come from the same village,
..know the same pub,
..have the same breed of dog, or
went to the same school or met
at that Festival in whatever year it was.”
Layers of friendship begin again
as the generations go down and
the young take over from the old..
and summer slips into autumn and
winter waits for spring.
Angie Butler
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Poem 2
Searching
Water surrounds us on three sides of the earth
The earth stretches beyond our vision
Vision is a gift given to very few
Few can see beyond the obvious
The obvious is all around on land and sea,
The sea unfolds in puddles and waves
Waves splash and crash in sight and sound
Sound weaves into smell and touch
Yet we cannot touch the heart
The heart we all lose occasionally
Occasionally we find it in shell or pebble
Pebbles grow to searching
Searching for the heart of life
Life is searching
Anita Pinto
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Poem 3
Bodyboarders
Straddling the almost nothingness
of surfboard and kitted out in wetsuits,
they’re self-silhouettes, liquorice-flicked.
Beneath them lies temptation,
its sea-swell lulling them to buoyancies:
the rise, the fall, the drift.
Waves are their bounty
as riding the incoming tide,
their faces recording their nowness –
the dare, the fun, the fear.
How profligately
they caress its crests,
their fingers raking the spume,
sifting its chilled veins, its sand,
its shell-shingle
to riddled stillnesses.
See how the beach greets them
where they towel their wetness down.
Try as they might,
they cannot wipe away
that salt-birth slick on their lips.
Roger Elkin
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Poem 4
Oh for a Day at the Beach
“Look, Uncle Sid’s puffed out his chest—
Oh, he’s such an awful pest!”
Off he goes, strutting to the sea,
Laughing, calling, full of glee,
Waving at the pretty girls,
Shaking out his boyish curls.
“Ho, it’s the lifeguard’s life for me!
Now, ladies, can you not agree?”
Flourishing a surfboard,
Striding forward like a lord,
He does a show-off’s belly-flop:
Shouts, leaps up and does a hop.
Cries Aunty Rose, “Help! Sid, do stop!”
For wasps have spoiled her fresh jam tarts
And a jellyfish stung Sid in tender parts.
Oh, for a day at the beach!
“Aaaargh!” shrieks our little Mandy,
“All my sandwiches have gone right sandy!”
So Granddad sagely nods his head.
“You should have heeded what I said.
And Uncle Sid’s a silly fool
For diving in that shallow pool.
But let’s pretend he’s nowt to do w’ us.
There, our Mandy, don’t you fuss.”
Kids are crying, want to paddle—
Loud enough to make your brain go addle.
Oh, for a day at the beach!
While Billy sneaks behind the dunes
With our sweet Sally (eyes like harvest moons)
Mum’s gone red as Granddad’s best beetroot
Now that a crab has pinched her foot.
“That’s bad,” condoles Dad,
“But now who’s got me sunglasses?”
“So you can eye up all t’lasses,
I suppose,”
Sniffs Aunty Rose
(With a delicate blob of ice-cream on her cherry nose.)
Oh, for a day at the beach!
Seagulls, screaming, scoop the sky.
Wind’s turned chilly; tide’s running high.
Susie’s got the shivers;
Mandy’s crying rivers.
Cakes gone all manky.
Granddad with a hanky
Knotted on his head
And sleeping like the dead.
Flagged sandcastles are inundated.
“And now the whole day’s wasted!
Beach picnics are so, so over-rated!”
“And all that time we waited…!
Oh, just for a day at the beach!”
Lizzie Ballagher
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Poem 5
Experience
Watching my boy
testing tiny toes,
cool water, scuttling crab,
hand reaches
tentative
past smooth black stone
grabbing the pink shell
claws meet child
and I am coming
arms open
towel ready
tears of discovery
extinguished.
Andy Scotson
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Poem 6
Roll Up
Roll up the tinfoil sea,
But let sleep that warm lagoon,
Golden syrup memories,
Sequinned sand and lolling pool.
Tuft the sky with candy floss,
Let sunshine cherry lips through,
Her warm gaze cheering us on,
Lucky dips turning lips blue.
Sound the fanfare of summer
Jam all the roads to the bay
Status :’No facebook’ back then
Best of friends for just one day.
Pam Szadowski
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Poem 7
Exotica
Down, down to the sunburst sea,
Steady as barrow mounds,
Ferrous with age and lined and quick,
Where terrible emptiness frightens me.
Careful, watch for the settling sea
Coming, soon to be washing
Waves and waves over me.
Follow, follow, and loose your hair,
Flowing as whale sounds,
Precious and strange and fine and thick;
Your earings are shells; essence like midnight air
Wearing. The ocean’s like maidenhair
Flowing; will you be bringing
Gifts gladly we can share?
Will you, will you, walk on the sand,
Barefoot hunting ground,
Perilous stage so soft we slip?
Here is the edge where we balance or find a hand
Holding, will it be yours? Stand
Still; soon the sea’s stinging
My face, ours. Leave the land
Lying, lying, cold and dry.
Out in the breeding-grounds
Terrors invite us, heretic
Animals come to us. Come to them! They’ll fly
With us, welcome us to the sea, to the high
Waters; There we’ll be singing
The sea’s song forever, never to die.
Michael Docker
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Poem 8
Shrimp
Today it’s fine – real rockpool weather
shrimping nets, sandcastles
the coconut smell of suntan oil.
Change the clothes and it could
be Gran and Granda as children
buttoned up in victorian splendour.
Yesterday the pirate seas raged heedlessly
surfers young and strong and not so young
gazed glumly at the waves
too rough they said those tall tough blokes
too rough, we can’t go out today.
My grandson, aged three, wetsuited up
pulled us with him as he ran into the sea
making for the island across the bay.
Daphne Milne
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Poem 9
Not Quite Warm Enough To Swim
I would have been happier
left in my room, reading,
but we were hauled to the beach
in the two door Triumph Herald,
me sat next to the picnic cooler.
When we arrived the tide was out
and the beach littered
with seaweed and exposed rocks.
Crabs and sand-flies nestled
in the dreggy pools of brine.
Undeterred we spread a blanket,
unfolded canvas deck chairs
that sunk into sand when sat on
and batted wasps away
from sandwiches and Smiths crisps.
Dad rolled up his trousers,
took off socks and sandals,
grabbed my hand to paddle,
skim stones over flat water
and collect dead cockle shells.
Against Mum’s better judgement
I wanted to go for a swim.
She stripped off my skirt and top
and I ran, in vest and pants,
to splash in chilly waves.
Mum held up the towel
to shield unbudded breasts.
I wriggled out of wet underwear,
cold and gritty with sand,
knickerless on the drive home.
Sue Spiers
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Poem 10
School’s Out
The classroom’ s another world
books, tests, walls forgotten
passed like a dream of another world.
The sky a warm blue smiles it’s
promises of freedom,
time for swimming, sand, buckets
dipped into rock pools
the adventure of discovery –
a glimpse of magic, wave washed
onto yellow sand. We run the surf
swim, paddle; sandwiches never tasted
better as we eat in a cliff shadow
as we lick salt
on tired lips as bare feet
climb the cliff path as dinner calls
tired bodies at the end of the day.
Carolyn O’Connell
