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Destiny

The rock

The rock on a high coast, on which I leant.

Your love, as strong as the rock.               

 

We were

children,

we held eternity blindly; we reached

for a meaning that was greater than life:

destiny.

 

Destiny - word of fools.

Your eye and mine:

they saw

only a hazed horizon.

 

Illusion.

Endless line before endless line

losing time to d...

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destinylifefutureseaHopkinsDewi Emrys

Life Tercets

1
A story about
                an old poet
    and his cottage

2
A dream of an old mariner
                lost in Wales
    adrift on his words

3
A memory of
                a young boy
    on his maiden voyage

4
A memory of
                innocence
    lost at sea

5
A line on a chart
                between a girl
    and loneliness

6
A communion
               ...

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lifeloveseamemory

Winter Beach

Remember

The sea assaults

Of winter gales when

Towering spray sheets curl

Over the green-stripe tower

At the harbour mouth

And waves roll shoreward

Beside its jetty

Shingle crashing

Floating spume across the beach

With black stones cold shone by spray

That above the wave thrust

Hides the horizon behind its mist

As the sun shines low

On a December afternoon

...

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Tan-y-Bwlchbeachseastormwavesjettyharbourshinglespume

The Sterling Castle, 1703

The sands move

brushed by moray tale

shivered in clouds

by a sole's shy shift

the currents stir

shaking silt

to mist the sea

to settle -

moving time

over an old log reel,

clearing the centuries  

discovering old timbers:

dead ribs

reaching up to past waves

offering their history

to the naked shipworms.

As the crabs scuttle to explore

as stars cree...

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HMS Sterling CastleThe Great Storm1703Goodwin Sandswrecksseastormswaveswindsandssandbanks

The Estuary

I am

barefoot

on a far tide line

sand rippled

spread

with estuary shells

with oystercatchers

soft where rills run down

or the sea pools

behind a half-sunk stone

or a mooring chain

I am

watching

moored yachts

swinging to the tide turn

above their sunken reflections

angled lines of cirrostratus

echoed below the horizon

in the mirror gloss sea

...

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beachboatscloudsestuaryreflectionsriversandseaseaweedtidetide line

Stranded High

Yet

My heart aches, and clouds hold fast my mind

Thought still I hear

The silence of the waves

The silence of their Siren pull

wash like hemlock through my senses

Their echoes crashing on my island shore

Returning to the sea

Unheard

Their hushed harmony

Foams surging up my beaches

A descant imprinted on my strand

Whispering back to the squalls

Unheeded.

Ne...

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Sirensislandisolationdrugswavesmusicvortex.whirlpoolhighssea

Images of a High Tide

harbour entrance swell

river bridge

above the beach

the scraping rattle

millions of stones

sucked off the beach

returning to the sea

 

beside the harbour wall

crossing waves

rearing waves

joining

breaking in foam

crashing

onto the shingle

the vast pull

of the receding sea

the undertow of sound

 

the bay

grey brown sea

under a blue sky

...

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beachdriftwodfishing netsharbourseaseagullssurftideundertowwaves

Summer Seascape

In the sun's mid-day heat

I see the tall field grasses flow, swell

and come towards me in waves               

surging before the day's wind

the seed-head spume constantly bowing

seems to fall on the field strand where I stand.

The rhythmic onslaught of the waves

continues through the long afternoon - 

a tide of wind-driven swells and rollers

always flowing to my feet, w...

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beachebbfieldsharvesthayhay fieldsseaswellstidewaveswind

The wave behind the wave

From beyond the far horizon arc

travelling travelling calmly on 

to swell gently across a sea

until the deep corals 

are left far behind

and the seabed 

rises sloping up 

to meet land

forcing us

to turn

to curl 

to break

to surge

to rattle stone

to shape sand 

our strength waining 

retreating quietly beneath

the wave behind our wave

a curling s...

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Seawavesswellsbeachshinglesandwave crest

Towards Beachy Head

In the distance

the green tops to the chalkwhite cliffs

slope down to the sea

behind countless breakwaters

wading out through low waves

their wooden posts testament

to the shifting stones of time

 

Below the grey sky

the bluegrey water rattles the beaches

sloping down to the sea

between stark black breakwaters

mute guardians of the coast

each wooden barrier m...

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groynesbreakwaterscliffswhite cliffsbeachesstonesseasky

My Sunset Haiku as a Sunset Englyn

My Sunset Haiku [1] as a Sunset Englyn [2]

 

A green flash from the setting sun - and night

Now sea and sky are one

Dusk from the gold orb is spun

Thus this mystic day is done

 

 

______

1.

Where sea and sky meet

                a green flash from the set sun

Lighting distant shores

 

2.

The Welsh englyn unodl union is a straight one-rhymed englyn consi...

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haikuenglyn formenglynionsunsetdaynightdusksundarkseahorizon

The Artist [1]

In so few splashed acrylic lines

see Cornish fishing boats

take shape against the quay

the red hull and the yellow

 

See Cornish fishing boats

mirrored in the harbour sea

the red hull and the yellow

with the deep sky sunk below

 

Mirrored in the harbour sea

the jumble of masts and cranes

with the deep sky sunk below

and the distant sea above

 

The jumbl...

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artistsCornwalldocksFalmouthfishing boatsharbourpaintingPantounreflectionsseaships

The Land of a Giant

Between the dark Ystwyth and the angry sea

We walked the cold stone beach

From the swirling river mouth

To the striated rocks beneath the southern cliff

Their upended strata pointing the way across Tan y Bwlch

Beyond the town beneath its northern cliffs

 

A Celtic god watches and menaces

Black Lugus on Pen ddinas Maelor:

We brave his fierce storms which shade our day

...

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beachseastormwavesflotsammythologyhistoryCeltsCeredigionRiver YstwythPen Dinas MaelorPen y DinasTan Y BwlchcliffsLugusMaelor GawrLleu Llaw Gyffes

Gower

The sand was always hot

                beside the white dunes and the coarse grass

               

The sea was always blue

                between the black rocks and the horizon haze

 

The beach was always ours

                between the seagull shout and the distant crowd

 

We were always alone

               between the far world and our near union

 

We swa...

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beachdunesfutureGowermarriagesandseasouth walesswimmingWales

Forvie, March 2017

Dunes...

And then the sand flowed like the tide

Shifting the land at the wave edge of the sea

A vast striated plane of drifting whirling grains:

Aged dunes lost to the wail will of the wind.

As we walked close by the sea suck and ripple

The bound beach rose and swallowed our grounded feet

We seemed to be free floating sand cloud high

In the sandsmoke drifts rushing to their...

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SandSand stormbeachdunesseaForvieScotlandcoastvillagefishermenchapel

Water

MAN:          In so short a time

I saw a future

Flow

Created

From the formless waters

Born

From the darkness

The way begins

All words are water

Flowing

 

GAIA:             From my innermost being

       I gave abundance!

My words flow from the mountain top

My words give succour to the land

My words are the waters of the sea

 

PRIEST:          The ...

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blessingsconversationdramaflowGaiaoceanpraiseriverseaTaowaterwords

RETROSPECTIVE

i

Innocent

     he met a force

Untried

            it held him

 

 

... and wonder drained the world of substance

            re-arranged the pages of his book to give more radiant a reading.

                                                           

The light of new possibilities

pressed down on time.

The girl sang to him "You can hear the boats go by". He

l...

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AutobiographyCeredigioncommitmentfamilyfarmjoylifelovemarriagememoriesmythologynavigationoceansseatravelWaleslong poems

Lost

And then

 

            at my source

I was lost to your ocean.

 

Flowing... your endless bounty stole my direction

            your depths embraced

            your corals welcomed my load

I drowned in your currents.

 

My hands caressed

your waves

My body plumbed

your deepest sounds

Your pools

received

 

Your tides were constant

            I sw...

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currentslossloveoceanpassionriverseatideswaves

Ocean

Restless: my body is your ocean; my limbs the currents of the sea

You float on my waves - sink only a little

I hold your sacred vessel safe - we become one:

A perfect balance of forces

Your body runs its course through my being

I feel you cleave my waves

I know you as we sink

Black waters closing

And I know you as we rise

I hold you to float above the tide as we burst th...

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currentsloveoceanpassionseawaves

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