Peacock Alley 80 x 80 x 2 cm - mixed media on canvas
SEX ON THE BEACH
The word wonderful describes
being on the slow boat from
Athens to the islands. Her sleeping head
in my lap, eyelids trembling. Just yesterday
in London we were fighting. Got on/ off an airplane.
Boarded a big old rust bucket listing to starboard.
Souvlaki & bread. Plastic cup of Nescafe.
& presto we’re embedded in some magic.
On the boat I was reading
that a couple thousand years ago
men did the shopping & didn’t wear underpants
Socrates downloading his classic pick-up line
on a young man, “Where can I
find the Good & the Beautiful
my son?” & even getting directions there. Found them
near the Agora, spread out in the sun by an olive tree
learning the rules of logic while watching two oily
adolescents wrestle in the dust. After, to the bath house.
Out where the blue of
water meets the blue of land
Athens destroyed the Persian fleet.
I think about Fate and Flux. But the Beautiful Goods intrude:
red sneakers, soft khaki shorts, tank-top enhanced assets.
A bird goes Ithaca! Ithaca! Ithaca! Then lifts off,
dropping a turd and three feathers. An omen?
Ships burning in the distance
are in truth pine trees enflamed by a brush fire.
Ten minutes from the skeletal, elegant temple of Apollo
was a cocktail called “Sex on the Beach.”
I still remember how that tasted.
