© Peter Haydon 1998. All rights reserved.

S: an introduction

Seal lies
Alone and still
By the rocks
Near the sea
On the beach

The sea, moon in mercury,
as she sighs out her story,
flickers closer, slides away.
Sometimes immerses,
makes love to her.
On such a night
If you catch her
She's yours;
She doesn't believe you care for
Her, still, naked under the skin

Alone
by the waterfall,
the heavy mossy stream stones

Picks a grain of sand
for every deed;
The beach flows past the eye,
She shimmers in the sun

Evening dove-
grey water whispers stories:
Tales of Rome's fall,
Decadence, greed, blood
Delicious corruption

Alone
by the waterfall,
the heavy mossy stream stones,
She rolls through her aspects.

Hair garlanded,
A stone warms in her hand,
She moves through flocks of soft shivering gulls

Spent arrow of purpose
Lies on ground
No kids, no man,
No, but grounded flesh

Take off skin
she whispered
Slice out blubber,
stretch out legs
Till joints crack with the pain of beauty
Beautify, barbiefy, beatify
Me

Told as a pup
(Too fat to bikini)
"Dreams are a drink too strong
And best, like self, denied."
(Spring pressed down, like flowers withered)

"Choose what you can do
Fling at it, make it true"
Teacher, wife, mother
sometimes a long dive into
dreams of otherworlds

Snapped shut:
"Keep busy;
Embroider the cut."

Then (she continues) he stole my skin
And had me, stripped and smooth as driftwood
on the beach

It lies
Withered as a hula skirt
On deserted sand
while the ghost of me blows
Into sea-mist, prism, mirage

Load "friend" like a gun,
Only one,
Clung till
I am all I wanted,
and not, still, enough
Hold me loosely now,
Let warm blood flow
Between us

Brought up straight and narrow,
Built to curl,
I twist and twine,
writhe against the Roman stake.

Spring of dreams flows up at night,
welling like never-loves.
Dive again into the myth of choice
And rise refreshed,
Baptised,
Confirmed

Alone
by the waterfall,
the heavy mossy stream stones
She rolls in
Dew against her naked wheaten skin
Penetrates like jewels of self-knowledge
Become her divinity

Virgin mother queen priestess
tell me about yourself
Your sole naked self