The Fish And The Beach


   [ Fun In The 2010s ]

    Amongst all this the world of Fish needs beach reports so beach reports it is. Because. Because it's Fish and because Fish Time doesn't last long. So he's doing it in between the serious. The serious big stuff. The serious big stuff that eats time like a black hole eats light and gravity. And still is.

<<< >>>

 
       WHITE CAPS 

white caps in line ahead
a blustery belter of a wind
coming straight off the southern ocean
arriving at about shoulder high to the jetty
attacking like the d-day yanks on omaha beach
whump whump onto the sand
(ah but they should’ve had it so good) 

standing on the end
at the railing
facing into it
doing the titanic arms out thing
(well, no arms out, too cool to be so crass)
wind making my spray jacket sleeves
clatter like a fast stick along a picket fence 

I tell you Fish
that belter blew my head clean off
but I needed a new one anyway
the other one was old and tired
and worn out 

it’s a little known fact that
if you get your head blown off
in just the right belter of a whitecap wind
you get to grow a new one
a fresh one
it’s a Rule
a damn good Rule too 

so I grew a new head
a Smudge sort of a head
full of fresh ideas and no accumulated claptrap
I actually started life with one of those heads
equipped with lively synapses that went
    click click click
making all sorts of brilliant connections
maybe they all just wore out
godknows they’ve done some work 

it’s also a little known fact –
on the eighth day
God invented grandkids 

it was on the Monday
the one after the Sunday when he had to rest
    (it’d been a busy week)
he got up refreshed that morning and said
    ‘there’s something missing...’
     (or words to that effect)
‘...Stars and Light and the Beasts Of The Fields
and Man and Woman are all very well but what we need is...
        ...Grandkids!’ 

so he did
made grandkids
and it was good
    (thanks God, you did well) 

    T.R.E. (2014)

                   <<< >>>


     BEACH REPORT 

early morning late autumn
in the year of our lord
   (don’t you love the cool yesterday-ness
     of that expression!)
twenty fifteen
sky a dog’s breakfast
in umpteen shades of grumpy
a dodgy breeze that’s everywhere
jetty deserted, tourists all home
the beach – ah, it’s a sad sad story Fish
buried in lumpy brown super stacks
the stuff the council spin doctor calls
   “sea-grass wrack”
but I’m sorry old son
no matter how natural you say it might be
it’s seaweed seaweed seaweed
for as far as the eye – well, almost
our summer swimmer shallows totally wrack-ed
by two days of a perfect storm -
woolly season-changer westerlies
a king tide
global warming
melting arctic icecaps
short-sighted coastal housing
sand dune erosion
stars out of alignment
sun spots
brown coal
too many cows
too many people
and our constant failure
to vote for the Greens
ohmygod what fools we’ve been
so Fish, now we’re paying for it
god has sent us endless “sea-grass wrack”
that just looks like mountains of seaweed to me
as a gentle reminder that the ocean
is a moody old cuss that’s getting moodier
   (but I betcha as good as new next summer, for us) 

    T.R.E. (2015)

               <<< >>>


    FROM THE JETTY 

Monday morning...
There’s a bully of a wind
Blustering in from south of southwest
Bulldozing up six-foot breakers
That are hitting the beach
Like the stukas at dunkirk
And on the end of the jetty
It's all wonky walking
And hanging onto the rail
And grip your hat like crazy
Or it’ll be in Mildura by tonight
Geez I love it when it’s like this 

Tuesday morning...
The breeze is a whisperer
Slip-sliding down from Smudge Mansion
Like it’s got nothing better to do
So the lazy loafer rollers are fifty feet apart
And sort of flop on the sand – pppffflll..shhhomp
Geez I love it when it’s like this 

    T.R.E. (2015)

                <<< >>>

 
   BLIND MAN SEES 

On the jetty this morning
I stood at the rail
and shut my eyes
like a blind man
just to see what a blind man sees 

(my ears worked heaps better than my nose!) 

dogs – no, one dog – barking
making a rugh rugh rugh-rugh-rugh sound
seagulls having a major ruckus
sorting out a pecking order
going rorhk rorhk rarkh raaaaarkh
a pump going brongabrongabronga
and the sea endlessly being the sea
wushing and wushing and wushing
and flooshhhhhhhhing onto the beach
not much else 

smell of bacon, I think
not much else 

it must take a lot of practice 

    T.R.E. (2015)

              <<< >>>


     FROM THE JETTY 

A pelican, wings spread,
came skimming the wavetops
like a low-flying jumbo jet
looking like he was just travelling through
from Brighton to Henley 

nearing the jetty
he took a sharp banked turn
and coasted up to the beach
air brakes deployed
a perfect landing
right in front of a Japanese tourist 

the camera was out
the clacker was racking up pics
at a rate of knots
while that pelican did poses and postures
like he was Mr Percival 

then he calmly waddled up to take off speed
headed over the breakers
another sharp turn on one wing tip
and he went on his way north
like he was saying
my work here is done 

    T.R.E. (2015)

            <<< >>>


    OVER THE SIDE 

Time on my hands
Ireland waiting
Kerry mountains calling
    One more sleep 

Grandma hair-cutting
All else done
Packed and strapped
    Done and double done 

Out on the jetty
Seabed a pale crystal green
See every crab every fish
    Every grain of sand 

This is the water
This is the day
This is the summer promised
    To Fish and me 

Couldn’t stand all that stillness
Couldn’t stand all that dappled clarity
So I jumped over the side
    Didn’t even take off my hat 

(Hey! - look at that old fool
 swimming in his clothes
 dopey old bugger...
    Uh-oh, he’s lost his hat!) 

Time and timing
They say it’s everything
Now the plane is waiting
    Sorry, there’s always next year Fish 

    T.R.E. (2015)

             <<< >>>


    ON THE BEACH 

this morning I saw... 

three thirteen year old boys
overflowing with boy-zips
having a fairly moronic
(and hugely testosteronic) competition
involving going for the perfect forward flip
over a mound of sand
one goes run run run jump hup WHOP!
flat on his back and gasping for air
and he will be for about twenty minutes
but all the time knowing
he’s the winner 

and there was a girl with a camera
and it was long lensed and seriously black
as all serious cameras should be
she seemed to be looking for that shot
the one we are all prone to look for
the one that will finally prove
the existence of God

    T.R.E. (2016)

            <<< >>>


    MONDAY MORNING 

it’s a Monday morning
what can you expect of a Monday?
but you head for the beach anyway 

the sky was glumpy
and the colour of old gunmetal
and my coffee wasn’t made right
and the café lady had the miseries
and my knee was aching
and my big toe was playing up
and the sea was just a dirty shade of bluuuugh
and the waves couldn’t agree which way the wind was 

so you feel just a tad put out
and grumble to yourself
about old age and worn out joints and grey skies 

but then, on the jetty
there was a pair of young newlyweds
rugged up and rosy cheeked and full of life
pic-snapping everything in sight
and a little kid with a yellow balloon
who was flat out chasing seagulls
and making aarrrrhaaaarrhhaaarrhh noises
like a master class in exuberance 

maybe ... maybe ... maybe ...
maybe some Mondays just need
an attitude realignment 

    T.R.E. (2016)

              <<< >>>


     FROM THE JETTY 

on the jetty this morning
a sharp kidney-gripper breeze
ruffled and shuffled the sea
made spotty rain go tik tik tik
    on my showerjacket hoodie
and everything was in ten shades of grey 

it was a real nose-runner northeasterly
a wintery windchill wind
that went straight through me
nearly took my cap and three ribs with it
made me walk more crabwise that usual 

    T.R.E. (2016)

             <<< >>>


   SUMMER COMING 

Fred came back today
crab-hunting and hungry
skimming the bottom sand
like a stealth bomber 

he looked grey-er
than I remember
maybe he's getting old too
hard to know how many years
a manta-ray gets
still, hard to know
how many any of us get 

he looks as graceful as ever
the way he sort of ... flies
as sweet as any ballerina
hard not to respect that 

I wonder how the crabs see it? 

    T.R.E. (2016)

             <<< >>>


       JORDAN 

On the end of the jetty today
there was a new message
It said – 

    RIP
   TO THE
  BEST GUY
   TO EVER
  STAND HERE 

   JORDAN
   DOUGLAS
   CAMPLIN
  I LOVE YOU 

I hope someone
does one for me
one day
 
But not too soon 

    T.R.E. (2016)

      <<< >>>


  THIS MORNING 

this morning the sea
is grey and grumpy
grumpy grumpy grumpy 

but what do I care
it’s still my sea 

and if every day it was
young and brash and bursting
full of light diamonds
maybe it’d get boring 

    T.R.E. (2016)

       <<< >>>


   MESSAGES IN THE SAND 

it’s a springs-in-my-feet
good-to-be-alive sort of a morning
the sort of a morning that REALLY speaks to you
  (there’s poetry out here everywhere Smudge
   it’s jumping into my face and saying -
   Write me! Write me!
   geez, I do love it when it’s like this) 

three kids left BIG messages for me in the sand –
 
“JESUS LOVES YOU”
“8 RULES By Thomas”
“11 RULES by DYLAN”
 
they must’ve known I was coming! 

(I wonder what they mean?) 

    T.R.E. (2016)

        <<< >>>


       FROM THE JETTY 

a round-shouldered sort of hug-yourself breeze
skimming across a goosebumpy sea
making long dirty sandbrown rollers
and on the hills there’s gloopy grey clouds
sitting on smudge manor 

there’s two fisherfolk at the edge
(such eternally optimistic people)
there’s also a fat man
      from one of the sheltered homes
      who’s acting odd
      but mostly harmless
      (but - what if he has
      a psychotic episodey thingo
      and rushes up behind me
      and chucks me over the side?) 

(geez you think some dopey stuff
      for no good reason sometimes) 

at the end there’s a message
in pink chalk on the black tar
“people love you more than you think”
left just for me  ...  maybe
maybe by some flowery hippie girl
still full of wishy wisdom
     and naivete
or maybe by the fatman
     who’s to say

    T.R.E. (2016)

           <<< >>>


    QUIET MONDAY 

I had a quiet Monday
a day in mid winter
that thinks it’s spring
brings out the sun and the tourists
and makes everyone lazy
including me 

I saw an old fella in a red hat
a pretty girl who made herself ugly
smoking like a chimney fire
(whooo – do they realise how much it stinks?)
but not much else
some snap-happy tourists
and a mum with a little kid
who wanted to know where the waves come from 

and not much happened either
other than grandma
winning seven hundred and sixty nine dollars
and forty cents
because she’s God’s favourite
and cute
 
(where DO the waves come from?)
 
    T.R.E. (2016)

         <<< >>>

 
WHERE THE WORDS COME FROM, SMUDGE 

The words come out of my brain 

They go down my neck
Around my shoulder
Through my arm
Into my fingers
And out of my pen 

But that’s just the words
The marks on the page 

Everything else comes from everywhere else 

It comes in through my ears eyes skin nose mouth
All the touching tasting smelling hearing seeing stuff
That mixes in with what was already there
Mixes in with the bits I arrived with
The spirit bits
The bits I got from my ancestors
The bits that drive the need to mull it all over
And over and over and capture it
 before it turns into smoke and mirrors
Then craft it into that special something that is
     my own voice
And do it with words
    The words that come out of my brain 

    T.R.E. (2016)

                  <<< >>>