Gargantua ate all of the first course
except for the feathers and beaks.
When the brasserie brought out a mouse mousse
he got it all down but the squeaks.
The thrushes were rushed so he skipped them,
Gargantua wolfing instead
a spitted Dalmatian he’d spotted
on the buffet. He asked for its head.
‘If I can’t,’ said Gargantua belching,
‘look at what I eat square in the eye,
I’ll give up my Ogre A rating
and subsist on alfalfa curd pie.’
We arrive at the edge of All, where Nothing stops,
or, if we look back, where Everything begins.
We need directions. Glitzy tax-free shops
showcase pristine worlds and a Catalogue of Sins
with the Tree of Knowledge’s photo on its cover.
Mysterious ailments nibble our attention.
We have no money. We are frightened. We discover
that eternal travel is the cruelest detention.
He leans into the wall. That makes me shiver.
Not ‘against’ but ‘into’ – he’s flaunting that he’s a ghost.
I have to convince him I think he’s alive or
he’ll fly through me. That’s his shtick I hate the most.
We talk about the good times we experienced.
We reread ageing email notes we shared.
The twilight comes and goes as if the day sensed
how our meeting leaves reality impaired.
He asks me to remind him how it feels
to feel anything: heat, anger, hunger. Love.
I ask him what if anything Death reveals.
We try but tire of finding any answers.
The wall resists my imitative shove.
We realise we are using up our chances.
The cormorant,
no better
than he needs be,
eyes me with
faux recognition
before slicing
the front porch
of clear shallow
water
we share –
me to watch,
him to fish.
If he is not
from Holland,
and wintering
here,
like I am,
some of the gulls
are.
—–
One gull, confused
(as I am
by four
languages)
by the accents
of light
and shadow
in Alicante/Alacant,
picks up a rock
and
drops it
on a mussel.
The rock does
not break.
—–
Waves,
more memories
of waves
than real surf,
fast break
along the edges
of forever
ample rocks.
—–
The cormorant
watches
me
watching
gulls.
—–
When you
make
your living
sticking out
your neck
under seas
and lakes,
then you must
see more
cormorantly
than I do,
see more
cormorantly
then the fat
northern tourists
in that dusty car do,
see more
cormorantly
than those
short people
in that nearby steep
village do,
see more
cormorantly
than those
tall-backed
Barceloneans
do.
—–
I thought
sea fish
appealed
to the
cormorant’s
taste,
and all
the mussels
were
for me.
I am gulled.
—–
Four men,
of whom the tall
are Spaniards
and the short
are English
on the dole
and
in tax exile,
walk back
and forth
in the
tangible
tangerine
sun.
—–
The top
of Alacant/Alicante
is a very old fort
that I take
in one minute,
relaxed,
by lift.
—–
It is cold
for this month’s norms.
Norwegians take a dip.
The notary who plays
on the beach
with his children
keeps
his coat on.
When the whispers that were once anthems all die out,
now that the madness at the fringe is institutionalized,
will we drown in private penance? Will we shout?
Our freedom was not something devils prized
from our dead hands. No, we gave it away.
We still have a chance, a lesser chance, to win
our freedom back, our honour back, today
and every bleak tomorrow. Seeing sin
for what it is – a bully and a coward –
is the first step to redemption, to the goal
of living in a world we want. Keep marching forward.
Madness feeds on madness and we’ll be leaving
our better selves behind us in the cold
unless we organise and stop mute grieving.
When the hors d’oeuvre octopus slid down my throat
it marked the way the better to retrace
its path, when later, putting out the boat,
I tamped it down with champagne to erase
both’s bubbles. Now the creature’s arms refloat.
They, eight and eaten, pulse and flex in place
to wait the wine tide’s ebbing to reblossom.
I should have stayed at home and stuck to ’possum.
Earth Tourist 