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Wednesday 5 October 2011

Apples were never that sexy!

In full flight, running by the sea,
leaping ancient groynes like an immortal,
I've almost landed on them -
Adam and Eve on holiday.
They have been soaking up the sun, are sprawled,
half-buried in the sand -
and this, before they've eaten any fruit.
His arm round her
and hers round him, two arms
like serpents slithering together
and showing by example
how to - or not to - enjoy sex.

The Eden Method : Lesson 1.
(So what the apple taught them later on
was something other than we'd thought.)

Change of focus:
just below their feet,
the tree, the famous tree,
the knowledge-of-good-and-evil tree
with every fruit of every kind displayed
(a supermarket range) to say
that every form of good and type of evil
will be included in the deal.

The sea is almost on them and will soon
be washing them away - as if they cared!
Six hundred years might vanish in a day -
should they be bovvered? Not a bit!

Strange to see them wet and steaming in the sun
as if they have been skinny dipping in the waves.
Some wag has threaded sea wrack,
green and brown, between their thighs,
along their sensual contours,
and then - the whole point of the exercise, no doubt -
in buns to hide the nakedness of their pudenda.
(And furthermore, of all such pubic hair
as they possess at such an early adolescent stage.)

A stone's throw out to sea
the falling remnants
of the rest of Eden crumble
sand to sand and flotsam bits
back to the sea to float away;
then further up the beach, below the bathing huts,
a vision of their family some twenty decades on:
their sons and daughters, more experienced by now,
have found the joy -
enough to populate the world.

Then all is gone.
So what remains? A trace of memory?
A golden apple, aptly won:
This week's "Sand Sculpture of the Beach".

15 comments:

kaykuala said...

Dave,
Adam and Eve, the ubiquitous Apple and the slithering serpent. At that point of time anything at all was sexy!

Hank

Jenny Woolf said...

Great mental image, I often get reflective when I see crumbling sand sculptures but I can never somehow put my thoughts about it into poetry!

jabblog said...

Sand sculptures - fantastic artistry.

Gerry Snape said...

I wasn't sure where this was going! but as usual it hit the mark. "All things come to dust"....they say.

Mary said...

Interesting! I had never really contemplated just what Adam and Eve were "up to" before the apple was eaten.

emanita01 said...

What deliciously, delectable witticism ;-)

Nice to see someone else who agrees with me that sex is not and has never been THE original sin...LOL.

ArtistUnplugged said...

What a scene set up, no wonder the population began! That darn Eve and apple.....

Shadow said...

with time, that what was takes on the shape of another, changing, morphing, transforming, until... until there's nothing left... nice one, dave!

Dick said...

Eros with laughter - always a tricky combination, but very neatly handled here, Dave.

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

With this and the previous poem in your blog I feel your visionary vein is gale force now.

Hannah Stephenson said...

"The Eden Method"--I love that. It would make a great name for a whole collection, wouldn't it??

Windsmoke. said...

Very vivid imagery of the Garden of Eden :-).

sunny said...

Hi Mr Dave,if you do not mind i wants to know that what that means "Apple were that sexy".

Emanita01 said...

Hi, I really like this poem & I like your voice so much that I am going to pass on a challenge I recently received from RoughWaterJohn called The Seven Links Challenge v2.0 Gauntlet.

http://fodder4writing.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/roughwaterjohn-passes-on-the-seven-links-challenge-v2-0-gauntlet/

PS: I’m not quite sure whether this is an award.

Dave King said...

kaykuala
... or possible! Thanks, you're probably right.

Jenny
I know what you mean. Van't say I've ever tried before. I've been writing a series on children's games and graffiti (today's being one), it somehow came out of that and the memory of some sand sculptures I saw a while ago.

jabblog
Some of them are unbelievable.

Gerry
Indeed. Weve just been having a conversation about how folk react to the news that they have a terminal illness when the obvious occurred to me with more force than usual: that we're all terminal.

Mary
Not a lot, really, I imagine!

emanita01
Of course not! Welcome to my blog. Really good to have you visiting.

I feel honoured - and slightly overwhelmed - by your further thoughts and challenge. I have had a look at further4writing, but feel unable to take it on just now. My present (self-imposed) challenge is to produce a daily post, mainly poems. In the main I am managing this, but only just, and could not combine it with any further endeavour. Very many heartfelt thanks for thinking of me in this connection.

ArtistUnplugged
Something had to get the ball rolling, I suppose!

Shadow
Like it, the amorphousness of it!

Dick
Thanks. They're oil and water, really, those two.

Tommaso
Wow - I shall try not to get blown away! Much thanks.

Hannah
I agree, it would - collection of what, though? Good to have your thoughts.

Windsmoke
Thanks. Much appreciated.

sunny
Well, they did or they didn't turn on the whole human race. Me, I think it took more than an apple!