Whitewash, the colour of the shackled crypts, casts upon
the church a pallor of distraught gray.
A goat is seen foraging between such marker stones.
The day seems to cut into the marble white detachment
of the sarcophagi with abrupt candor.
Yet, while the cove pokes like a walking stick, the sun &
earth conspire to reclaim this space as their rightful bread.
A huge vegetative urge to growth is witness to abundant
further life - life in whorls of bamboo shoot, naseberry
thatches & canebreak all garnished a short stride across the barrier gate.
13

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PROSPECTUS

In salt flats,
idle pools
bunching off the ocean,
multi-legged crabs, worsted stalks -
sea crimson weed
weigh the panoply
to heighten my deepening fervour.

In the bedrock shanks
of spread tidal basins
clothed in spools of enveloping
brackish water,
a plethora teeming with aqua towns
and untold gadgetry exists -
replete with mimicry
including primeval
flotilla tanks
and broadsheets for spreading
their way of life.
14

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GLADIATORS

No broken visor, emptied glove
abandoned cudgel, opened net
- only gathering spots on spreading sand.

Clang of cymbals
wrench of flesh,
death is a morsel
delectably met.
15

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OCEAN SEA
All that is eternal is circular.
- Aristotle

Cueta and Tetuan are outposts within the Arab psyche,
frail islets jutting their Islamic consciousness
into the infidel mind.

A mere eight miles separates the tip of North Africa
from Iberia's reclining form.
An Arab dhow sits off the port of Tangier
where the unsuspecting can lose more than priapic curiosity.

Arabia, from Ormuz to Sofala,
an empire of sabulous plenitude -
shiekdoms, oil rich fiefs, and
luxurious enervation.

Da Gama rounds the Bight of Africa, needles the Saracen eye.

Tutankhamen rests dolefully within the dunes
away from bone merchants until 1923 draws nigh.

Ptolemy errs and extends Africa to the Poles.

The noblest failure in antiquity rests in Zama
while Jesus toiled for our betterment at Galilee.

Richard dies besieging Acre.

Carnage occurred at Lepanto with attendant demise of the Turk.

Marco Polo ignores the Levant