Splash

Water Pot

Classy culture clash five decades,

semi-centennial, half a

century on,

as white-skin western flyers

carry brown-skin Bengali peasant

earthenware to Assamese

custom men.

Potted tea patriot perhaps

but water jar, no sip, no spit,

incongrual for them, ill-fit,

no word, untrained,

no script.

In training, we, safe,

sterilised, cool, station

supply.

Respectful, staring neck,

they darkness see, and

swirling, listening, they

swirl hear.

This not pot they smuggle fear,

our logic clear,

impeccable.

But none affording fare for air

has water pot. None owning

earthenware has costs

to fly.

We, respectful too, smile, take drink, offer

them the same; dilemma solved,

honour satisfied. Foothills

forward.

Sangam Hottest

Later boatmen, so different,

row us down, mercury up,

hottest known, so river flow -

floating detritus and pyre fuel saving

body parts, perch for pecking -

cools.

Curly, other close-cut,

shirted, other bare,

shine, other dried

high cheeked and planed

but both wary, watch us.

Eagles glide while water slugs

and vast brown fish curls in slowest motion,

hypnosis seen as yesterday,

dragging heavy gorged fruit of feeding ground

through filmy dense opaque last glug.

Then Sangam

slight stir whirlpools, whilst banked,

saffron sanyasi sit immobile

on bleached wood ricket platforms, waiting.

Plumped pad over the sandy mud

to dip the sacred stream.

A Brahmin, corded girth, holds nose,

and douses thrice.

We sail back.

Another bird balances on

floating flesh, another torso passing

in this place of desolation,

another thrown into confluence.

Level Best

I see the laughter even now -

sheer clear excite of splashing, spray,

those gurgle rivulets, delight,

a village pump in outcast site -

pig leather work outside the camp.

Now every day, each week about,

when I can turn the kitchen tap

I see those vital bouncing kids,

their thrash in swelter Ganges’ heat,

hard harsh beat sun where fountain spewed.

So this oasis, water aid,

feeds irrigation, paddy tiers,

brings lubrication, shy of speech,

clean fluid to dumb roof-stuck tongue,

for dysentery, health, thirst hope.

It’s fifty on, those wattle lads,

grown old amongst cow pats, goats, daub;

I pray the girls were not enslaved,

those folk made way to medic school,

or engineers, wells into pipes.

As liquid finds its level best,

creation’s folklore tales and scripts,

and days above Genesis deep

all speak of spirit, water’s glint,

dream, global hamlets, spouts, fresh streams.

Splash

What causes splash?

Some boulder block?

Are hopes so dashed

for would-be swim?

And what stirred chemicals in smash

of brine, this bubbled cauldron mix?

Look, are there footprints in the sand

or bashed up castles on the strand?

And were there kids, kings of their mounds,

or Canute’s challenge, neap or spring?

Are there white horses riding waves

or maybe, set Camargue indeed?

Perhaps whale killer after seal,

launching its beachhead hunt for meal,

or oddball geezer alien,

in fluffy flurry, furry skin?

But who designed that diamond drop,

like pearls amongst that gritty slop?

And why are we engaged (the ring?),

by power from moon in tidal fling?

A dash cam moment, shutter speed,

recalling shingle, pummel sound,

and then slow drag back, drawing breath,

before that onslaught, and again.

When I was innocent at ten,

and tentative, bare pebbled soles,

it was incoming rhythm bites

that hid the rockpools, searching net.

I knew not Google, skimming stones,

our phone, home cradle, Bakelite,

but there we mucked, breakwater groynes,

a haven, post-war London slums.

With fortnight summer, wind and rain,

Thames estuary of oyster beds,

bucket, spade and choo-choo train,

I found my paradise in change.

And sixty on, exotic dreams

are nightmares when compared to this.

Though still, on Sabbath, pew to pray,

it was our family at play,

Eternal Father, strong to save,

through lifeboat sirens, launched maroons,

reduced to autumn essays, school,

‘My Holidays’ in words or art;

no journalistic splash involved,

unfathomed by the jetset world,

but these were Battle Britain fields,

and I content with pebbles’ reach.