Cadaques, Spain

Morning comes

and the sea awakes in bright flashes and ripples,

white waves on blue sea,

crashing against black rock.

 

fierce sun beats down hard,

on packed earth, and the kaki skin of twisted trees

all boiling

 

fish writhe in anxious waters,

stirred up by the thrashing of swimmers,

while old men like shrunken tortoises

sip cups of coffee in the shade

 

The hours between

warm darkness, sickly sweet as spilled booze

on a bar just now silent, fag smoke making spirals

in long tainted air

 

seagulls asleep now, waiting for the sun

drunks climb tired up cobbled streets like old arthritics.

within the bakery by the square,

a local shovels round bread into ovens

 

Cats fight in darkened windows

scratching and biting

playful children

I sit alone upon a rattan chair

watching

Flat blackness

slither out to sea

beyond the bay, Rocamar Hotel

squat, yellow, Mediterranean Lhasa

Shining lighthouse to insomniacs