Another Place

What strikes us

is the stillness.

It’s a common place:

“above us only sky.”

The beach just keeps on going:

the sand shows the traces

of a kid who scribbled “Poo!”

inside playful speech balloons

again, and again, and again.

You have to stand there

to understand.

The men are stilll

with their feet buried,

they can’t smell but

in the distance lookalikes

copy them with tripods and lenses

walking dogs, getting fit,

there are no waves.

Some tankers pass by slowly.

The men are standing

facing beyond, up straight,

cold and covered in scars left

by other living organisms.

This is all about the tide

and the wind, the expanse of land,

the vastness of the sky.

Here are the iron men,

ageing monuments rooted to

the landscape which is theirs,

ghostly like people,

but harder, alone amongst

all the others,

with chests and legs pierced

by painful solid pipes,

dreaming of one day

reaching faraway lands.

Instead they go farther, deeper,

without moving.

Eventually they drown.

The next morning they are still at it,

waiting for another day.

Until a sea of time

swallows them completely.