Bordeaux Bay

Bordeaux Bay
Bordeaux Bay by Guernsey-based artist Tony Taylor

Friday 3 October 2014

COLD SNAP


As a child I loved to receive seaside postcards and, back then, before affordable air travel whisked us away to the Costas, holiday greetings tended to be sent from popular Northern Irish coastal resorts like Portrush, located on a peninsula extending into the chilly Atlantic Ocean. This poem was inspired by the reminiscences of my elderly Aunt Marion, who, as a young girl, spent an idyllic holiday there with her best friend. 
I've used a simple abcabc rhyme scheme and octosyllabic lines in an attempt to recreate the animation that I recall hearing in my Aunt's voice as she told me about those far-off, joyous days.  





FREEZE FRAME

We leapt like mermaids, screamed and froze,
while breakers splashed our thighs with spray.
As the Box Brownie camera snapped,
we vainly tried to hold a pose.
Behind us, the Atlantic lay, 
endless, eternal, arctic-capped.  

And afterwards, we wrapped ourselves
in rugs to shelter from the wind.
We hugged each other, laughing, there
beneath black, jagged coastal shelves
where sea-pinks grew. Thus, we were twinned
in friendship: an aquatic pair. 

6 comments:

  1. Hi Richard, lovely to see your blog coming on so well. You set the poems up so well. A pleasure to read, and thanks for posting one of my poems too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Peter. So glad to read (at http://anothersun.blogspot.com) of the success of the poetry readings you're taking part in to promote your new collection The Nightwork published by The Telltale Press.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Loving the poems, keep them coming.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Moira. Great to receive positive feedback. Lots more to come and some great musical links too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, Yasmin.

    ReplyDelete