The Wild Water's Edge

I sit staring seaward at the brisk water's edge

With sand blowing south-east from the land,

Stinging, lounging quietly, and gently dredge

Glimpses of sparkling blue in another grand

Portion of my life when the world was younger

And so much glorious beauty surrounded me

In those halcyon days when there was hunger

To dive deep into the blue, cooling pool or sea.

Now I sit still at the wild water's edge and sigh

To strains of Mahler's Fifth, as the wind whips

My stationary, immobile frame while, still, I lie

As slowly the sun sets on a life well lived. Lips

Move, as I ask whilst deck-chair postured there:

"Why does the little white bird on the shore stare?"

No gentle going into the approaching dip of the sun

With three days to the Equinox. No. I am not done!

A Waling Mist Falls Silent

And thus it came like some grotesque woe

At nine and twenty minutes of the night

Only five months and five days ago

When pale eyes finally lost their sight

Of that fright fifty years less five months

Earlier when some nights walking past

An eerie north gate, or so he said, some-

Thing dead hovered that would last

In perception until his last breath,

Until his lingering, haunted death.

He now joins the hovering thing

That fades — that does not sing

But wails as would a wampyr impaled

By an almighty sharp, wooden stake;

And Kraken-like cacophonously rales 

From a distant, deepest, darkest lake.

Abominable, dreadful despair.

Will you now wash your hair

And finally prepare for where

You are heading? But, where?

Fare thee well, David Farrant,

For whom the last long exhale,

In frightful, feeble, nervous rant,

Has, clipper-like, finally set sail.

But to no avail.

I wish you Godspeed — and hail

Fellow, but perhaps not well met.