12 apostles (latest edit):

Twelve in silence stand

eight under the sun

four in shadow.

Resolute, they look to the sea

no matter the time of day

the season at hand

the lunar or solar cycle

the stars that spin above.

Twelves sentinels to guard

eight under the sun

four in shadow.

Sand, stone, ragged grass and steadfast

silence within the relentless boom

defend the indefensible

against salt, wind and ocean.

They meet the sea,

whose waves crash like wild Picts

against Hadrian’s wall, foam tossed high

to sparkle before the fall, soundless

even as they grow incomplete.

Twelve apostles silent all day,

eight under the sun

four in shadow.

when I was a boy I stood upon one,

the arch to cross still existed then

and, in the wild wind and sea spray battle,

grasped that the world would always be

greater than reality.

Now sixty and only eight remain,

four have surrendered grain by grain

into the great journey of sea and sand

to find themselves never whole again

but particles of a new land

in a distant horizon

unnamed until mangroves seal the fragments into soil.

In memory twelve remain, silent, frozen

in a time before language and dance

when the world, lately formed,

hung itself out to dry

like the wings of a newly birthed dragonfly.

They guard still, the twelve;

eight under the sun

four in shadow.

mere men: (edit 1)

In the sixties

they belonged to the sea,

each day as the sun broke free

to warm the holiday tents

and steal sleep with brewing heat,

waves beckoned from beyond warming sand

calling the tanned bodies to submerge,

to forget the land and dream

of life in the deep green underneath.

Now in their sixties

they visit the sea at the end of every year

but where once bodies stayed

until maternal voices called them back to upright life

now the water chills too swiftly

and hardly having entered the green

their feet return to the land;

bound above now

seeing the days tumble into years,

the memories of the child,

like mist that rises in the morning

then vanishes when the sun

burns away the dreams of the night
to bring forth each day’s worked for truth.

mere men:

In the sixties

they belonged to the sea,

each day as the sun broke free

to warm the canvas tent

and steal sleep with brewing heat,

waves beckoned from beyond warming sand

calling the tanned bodies to submerge,

to forget the land and dream

of life in the deep green underneath.

Now in their sixtieth decade

they visit the sea at the end of every year

but where once bodies stayed

until maternal voices called them back to upright life

now the water chills too swiftly

and hardly having entered the green

their feet return to the land;

bound above now

seeing the days tumble into years,

the memories of the child,

like mist that rises in the morning

then vanishes when the sun,

burn away with the dreams of the night

to bring forth each day’s worked for truth —

age diminishes the ability to imagine

faster than any neuron or tissue,

shrinks the psyche before
it dwindles the mind.

The 12 Apostles:

Twelve in silence stand,

eight under the sun

and four in shadow.

Resolute, they look to the sea

no matter the time of day

the season at hand

the lunar or solar cycle

the stars that spin above.

Twelves sentinels to guard,

eight under the sun

and four in shadow.

In meetings between sea and apostle,

foam tossed high as, like wild Picts

against Hadrian’s wall,

waves crash against each of them, they

in prayer, contemplate the fury.

With sand, stone, ragged grass,

and steadfast silence in the ferocity of sound

they defend the indefensible

against salt, wind and ocean.

Twelve apostles silent all day,

eight under the sun

and four in shadow.

when I was a boy I stood upon one,

the arch to cross still existed then

and, in the wild wind and sea spray battle,

grasped that the world would always be

greater than reality.

Now sixty and only eight remain,

four have surrendered grain by grain

into the great journey of sea and sand

to find themselves never whole again

but particles of a new land

in a distant horizon

unnamed until mangroves seal the fragments into soil.

In memory twelve remain, silent, frozen

in a time before language and dance

when the world, lately formed,

hung itself out to dry

like the wings of a newly birthed dragonfly.

They guard still, the twelve;

eight under the sun

and four in shadow.

Near the dinosaur caves, Inverloch 2018.

Peering down Inverloch’s cliff face, gives witness

to Ocean’s rage — spurned mistress,

She once blanketed Earth, what gossips

single cells could tell in that ancient bedding down;

the steam, the explosions, the settling of mountains

until the two sated lovers rested; Ocean

unaware, as she felt the moon tug her to sleep,

Earth cooled, slipped away in the night,

forever since greets the sun —

now foe against the land, Ocean

tosses white tears high into the sky,

butterflies of salt and foam that glitter in the light

then fall back into the whole.

What strikes most looking at this site

is that once this was a river; millions of years ago

dinosaur wandered the banks, chewed through ferns

(where seaweed now trails in green tales untold)

while shaking the soil with feet larger

than a large man’s large head. This tidal-time of day

denies a visit to caves hoping to see imprints

of colossal feet, the caves are submerged,

having listened again to ocean’s liquid tirade.

Earth resists yet below there are thousands of rocks

rounded by Ocean’s relentless words, testament

to the places where He has lost momentary arguments.

The dinosaur bones remain despite Earth

having moved on… then forgetfully He turned around

and found Ocean’s rage as a greeting —

She never ceases, never lacks the thirst

to lick with corrosive tongue a million times or more

bones left behind… Ocean does not forget.

Upright Ape at Inverloch – summer 2018:

Standing here at the edge,

the wind throwing grains of sand into my flesh

as if I am the vacant space the universe

explodes upon,

the sound of the ocean,

unending howl of creation

as land is torn, broken down,

reformed in places unseen.

I remember when I was sixteen,

innocent except in the mastery of the pain

that sixteen years had yielded,

beauty seen

as if from behind a window;

always there and not held,

touched but swift to fade,

like a snowflake beneath the heat

of skin and desire.

The water burying my feet in homage

to time’s unending carving of the tomb

for flesh and bone to be hollowed out and found

in some distant time, perhaps then lifted

to some stranger’s lips, lung-wind

blown to make music of all that I was once

and has been forgotten.

Life — the ocean of individual droplets,

useless unless considered

as a single form coming and going,

changing the world, reorganising it,

breaking it, and — if wisdom wins —

repairing ourselves and the destruction

we bring for some future generation

of bone blowers, their hands, each of five digits,

cradling all that we have held.