The girlfriends in their terracotta shoes danced as they avoided the comb tide.<\/p>\n
On the dunes the grasses dreamt but could not taste the fruits of the singing palms<\/p>\n
I told them that all journeys were imaginary<\/p>\n
They did not believe me<\/p>\n
As the evening invaded the day I returned and looking north I counted the fifteen windows of\u00a0 a high hotel.<\/p>\n
The girlfriends had long returned and each was at a window wishing that they could stay<\/p>\n
But in secret they all longed for home.<\/p>\n
These were their golden years<\/p>\n
The seabirds on the magical promenade traded tokens in exchange for food and told tales of their navigation<\/p>\n
I did not listen<\/p>\n
All journeys are imaginary<\/p>\n
I sat on a sandswept seat and watched the crabs count the grains of sand<\/p>\n
Without interruption I counted the stars<\/p>\n
At midnight we agreed a total<\/p>\n
Which exactly matched our calculations<\/p>\n
Only the drunken waves disagreed<\/p>\n
But they were of no account<\/p>\n
I was offered accommodation in a fish carriage<\/p>\n
Which I declined as the energy of war still fascinated me<\/p>\n
I listened for conflict<\/p>\n
But heard only the vacant winds<\/p>\n
I felt a fool<\/p>\n
All wars are imaginary<\/p>\n
I envied those who slept as I could not sleep<\/p>\n
This was the shame of my soul<\/p>\n
I had received letters from childhood which were charred beyond recognition and the ashes stained my hands.<\/p>\n
I could not wash as the sea had retreated from me<\/p>\n
The night faded and exposed the scaffold of a hanged man<\/p>\n
I envied his journey as I knew all journeys were imaginary<\/p>\n
I envied his pleasant thoughts of love<\/p>\n
For I had no sensation<\/p>\n
In time the sea swept him away and I wrote letters to friends of the event<\/p>\n
This was the true romance of prayer<\/p>\n
During the day royalty visited and covered me in gold which I buried in their presence<\/p>\n
I was condemned to the rocks but did not reach them<\/p>\n
My visitors longed for winter funerals as they had come far<\/p>\n
I hastened them to wait and picked up a washed bottle and urged that a message be deposited within<\/p>\n
I left the bottle in a sand pool<\/p>\n
And shattered it upon their departure<\/p>\n
Later a child with pearls in her hair handed me a casket<\/p>\n
Enclosed was a relic<\/p>\n
I thought it stolen and abandoned it for a week<\/p>\n
The divisions of my curiosity then took hold of me<\/p>\n
And on the eighth day I released the key<\/p>\n
Inside was a piece of uncorrupted flesh<\/p>\n
On which was written in a minute hand<\/p>\n
Vectate<\/i><\/p>\n
A primitive boat awaited me<\/p>\n
I ignored it<\/p>\n
But again my curiosity took hold of me<\/p>\n
I boarded the boat and lit a solitary lamp<\/p>\n
And under a sliced wind headed towards the bay of corpses<\/p>\n
The weather suddenly became warmer<\/p>\n
But I was not becalmed<\/p>\n
As swarms of turquoise flying fish kept my direction true<\/p>\n
They fanned me with their transparent wings<\/p>\n
And kept me warm at nights<\/p>\n
Soon the corpses of the blind barbarians began to float by<\/p>\n
Wide eyed in their death<\/p>\n
These mad men climbed into my boat<\/p>\n
And began to succour at my breast in their hundreds<\/p>\n
I felt a suffocation and cast them away<\/p>\n
But they returned in greater numbers<\/p>\n
And I was consumed as we were dragged together into a black whirlpool<\/p>\n
But I did not drown<\/p>\n
The feeding frenzy had declined<\/p>\n
And the sea was calm once more<\/p>\n
My boat had become derelict and was sinking fast<\/p>\n
Never would it sail again<\/p>\n
I found then that I could swim with ease<\/p>\n
And began to cover great distances<\/p>\n
Barnacles found their homes on me like a ship ancient in the sea<\/p>\n
But I could not see islands<\/p>\n
I only sensed them<\/p>\n
Many years ceased<\/p>\n
Until one sunless day I was cast ashore<\/p>\n
On a red island<\/p>\n
I thought it uninhabited<\/p>\n
Until the wreckers came<\/p>\n
They stripped me of all my value and left me naked and bleeding<\/p>\n
I clothed myself with the feathers of the friendly gulls<\/p>\n
And when composed told them stories of my voyage of many years<\/p>\n
My reward was the laughter of landscape<\/p>\n
The whole island mocked me<\/p>\n
I hid in the spear grass to escape my torment<\/p>\n
And soon noticed that an white opaque shell<\/p>\n
Had began to form around me<\/p>\n
Slowly my emancipated body disappeared from view<\/p>\n
And I was mocked no more<\/p>\n
I was trapped in a dark but comfortable refuge<\/p>\n
I did not want to leave as I felt my body becoming stronger<\/p>\n
There was no light although I could hear my solitude<\/p>\n
And with this solitude came the warmth<\/p>\n
And with this warmth came the silence<\/p>\n
And with this silence came my sleep<\/p>\n
And with that sleep came my dreams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The girlfriends in their terracotta shoes danced as they avoided the comb tide. On the dunes the grasses dreamt but could not taste the fruits of the singing palms I told them that all journeys were imaginary They did not believe me As the evening invaded the day I returned and looking north I counted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}