Sun scorching, sweltering, sizzling beach

My hardened soles resist the heat

Sunglasses shielding my eyes

White cotton ball clouds glide

Along deep blue skies

But I’m blue too

Intensely

Missing

You

I've seen sand flooding through city streets like a torrent of hot gravy drowning sprouts and beetroots, park benches and church rooves.

Or maybe more like the final sprinkle of salt over a roast dinner, baptising the parsnips and chicken breast in some sick meal time ritual.

It bursts through stained glass windows, suffocating the streets and preserving the locals. It rains down.

They used to mix it into a paste and mould it into city scapes - arches topped with fancy statues in humble salute through holes in the clouds.

Nowadays they melt it down and make office blocks out of the stuff, 500 metres in the air propped up like a million glossy middle fingers.

We collect samples of it from the moon, then analyse it and draw loads of numbers and pie charts.

We bake it into computer chips and pluck digits from the stars in the sky. We can predict eclipses and the dances of the planets with only slightly more accuracy than Ptolemy.

The power and strength of the sand is unstoppable. It'll come again when you least expect, and drag us with it into our own graves.

There! Right there in the middle!
                 You see it? 102.91!

Goodbye starless nights,
Goodbye rainy days
I’m setting off to Rhodes
-an Island full of grace

Breath-in the sunlight,
See a windmill blowing
through the sea
The shore is out of sight,

The sun goes down
-it’s my turn now
Sings preciously the night

Symi! Hidden place of
secret gardens-
Breakfast by the sea,
A kiss of time
A fool, laughing on a tree

Will I ever reach that bee?
Or shall I sit and listen
In my tower
Laughing on my olive tree...

Symi! Will it ever get so close?
See a saw and drink a drink
seek a bee and find a templar
town, Fascio di combattimento
cause....

Rhodes! Morning starts with
croissant
Afternoon continues-
musique d'ameublement

Rhodes! Island full of windy
nights
cloudless skies,
Sands and mystic sights

Desert rose,
A kiss of time
A fool ageing on a tree

Will I ever catch that bee?
Or shall I stay and listen
to the waves
never found my home,
the home of many fates
                                the sea.....

Baking, broiling, blindingly bright, blistering sun,

super scorching, sweltering, sizzling sand

the kabob that is my body searing, skewered

Deceptively blue skies devoid of any deliverance

no cavalry of clouds coming to convey compassion

Rising balloon-like bubbles of hot air

causing distant objects to ripple and dance

shimmering in the atmospheric boil

Falling to my knees, I detect in the distance

glimmering patches of blue and green—Mirage!

A maniacal mime of molten mockery

deriding my dreadful demise




Mark Toney © 2019

Waves crash to the shore
Laughter echoes through warm sand
Children playing once again

i have spent my whole life following close behind
matching my prints to the ones laid out in front of me
following them blindly without questioning where they lead
i try to keep my feet inside the the lines
like i’ve always done with coloring
but i’ve never fit perfectly
my feet never fit
because these prints are not mine

Can't stop
Won't stop
Feeling things
Buried in emotions
Like wet sand
At that beach
I never asked to be here

Picture a man’s solitary stroll on a sandy seaside,
Early time of day, just a short time after low tide,
Water almost calm, gentle waves lapping the shore,
Early morning sun brilliantly blazing the horizon.
Feel the wonderful breeze…smell the salty ocean air…  
See, hear the jaegers, gulls and terns flying without a care.

The soothing sounds of the wind, water and gulls
Are suddenly intruded upon by the sad cries of a small child.  
"What's wrong?" the man kindly asks, as he kneels next to her.
"Someone knocked down my sandcastle," is her reply, tears flowing.
"Don't worry little one, I'll help you build another."
To the little girl's delight, the man smooths away the sand,
In preparation for a newer, bigger, better sandcastle.

Soon his concentration is broken by frantic cries for help.  
Looking out over the water, he sees a tiny figure,
Desperately clinging to one of the buoys marking the deep-water.
Running to the water’s edge, he clearly sees another little girl,
Close in age to the first, whose swimming has carried her too far,  
And now she perilously clings to the buoy, unable to swim back.

The man returns to the first girl
And continues to build the sandcastle.
"The girl in the water is safe for now", he assures himself.
"As long as I can hear her cries for help,
I know her head is above water.
Besides, this other little girl's problem came first.
As soon as I am done with her sandcastle,
I will most certainly rescue the other one..."

And so, the man does build the sandcastle,
One more magnificent than the first.  
All the while he builds, he continues to hear
The desperate cries from the second little girl.  
By sandcastle’s finish, her cries have become weaker, less frequent.
"Are you happy now?" he asks the first little girl.
"Oh yes," she cries, "thank you sir...."
As she joyfully dances around her new sandcastle.

With that, the man springs into action,
Just as she slips off the buoy and goes under.  
He reaches her in record time with all the strength he can muster,
Expertly positioning her on her back with her face above water.
Wasting no time or effort he makes his way back to shore,
As more and more people gather to cheer on the savior.  
He gives CPR - after several coughs, water clears lungs, a life is not lost.
As if on cue, the rescue team arrives, transporting her to hospital.
Extremely grateful parents and the city honor him as a hero.

So what say you?  Is such a man deserving of honor?
How would the parents react If they knew the rest of the story?
Especially since he was the lifeguard assigned to beach patrol!

Now, friends, after considering all of this fuss,
The question bears asking, what about us?
Are we making sure of more important things,
Or are we busy building castles in the sand?