A Holiday from Strict Reality by Christopher Reid

Here we are at the bay
of intoxicating discoveries,
where mathematicians
in bathing trunks and bikinis
sit behind the wheels
of frisky little speedboats
and try out new angles
to the given water.

Everything that we see
in this gilded paradise
is ours to make use of:
palm-trees on the marine drive,
nature's swizzlesticks,
stir the afternoon air
to a sky-blue cocktail
of ozone and dead fish.

All day long
the punctilious white yachts
place their set-squares
against our horizon,
as we lie around on mats
and soak up the heat,
cultivating a sun-peel
that grows like lichen.

A restless volleyball
skips between four figures
like a decimal point,
but the ornamental beach-bum
who lives under an old boat,
picks at his guitar
and contemplates the plangent
hollow of its navel.

In the hotel bar,
alcoholic maracas
and, on a high glass balcony,
a pompous royal family
of apéritif bottles . . .
Ernesto the bartender
tots up a long bill,
castanetting with his tongue.

Written 1978   |   7 October 2023