"The Poet" by Adam Carlton

Another from my collection of short stories, published on Amazon:

"Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations: and other stories" (2019).

In homage to the French, their culture, and to Saint-Malo...

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He was away again. Some business trip to Rome or Singapore or somewhere. We stole away on Saturday morning in the Poet's ancient 2CV. It's a long way to St. Malo on a chilly spring day. Especially in such an affectation of a car.

We walked the walls of the seaside town, a bohemian couple. We watched the gulls - effortless in a cloudless sky. It was warm in the sun. We ambled onwards bathed in an erotic haze; sometimes he'd put his arm around my shoulders, hug me close. There were few abroad to note our chemistry; our every movement charged with leashed desire.

It was too early in the season - the sands were quite deserted. In the hotel room later, before we went to bed, he read to me the poem he'd conceived.

So Many Years 

So hand in hand we walk the promenade

A tepid sun hangs in a cloudless sky

It's warm here in this little space we've made

But colder for the people going by.

The seaside here in early season's May:

The toilets locked, the walls deserted too

The car parks empty, who would want to pay?

The town wants tourists; me, I just want you.

I steal a glance, I see you, fierce and strong

Curious, happy, avid eyes that shine

I brush your palm, admire your body’s form

So restless, fickle, dangerous, risky - mine.

So many years we've patterned our affaire

Hilarity, stupidity, it's true.

You’d think by now I’d know you, be aware

Yet every second you seem someone new.

We wonder if perhaps we’ll get a snack

The shops are shut, the tide is out, it's no big deal

I spread your fingers with my own, you squeeze me back

If we had time and space I'd make it real. 

And, as the clock struck midnight, we proceeded to make it real.

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Later that year, in July, I was at a conference in Barcelona. It was held in a seafront hotel overlooking the port not far from La Rambla. The Poet was able to join me - he said he could work anywhere.

Not such a holiday for me. The conference was hard work. I had presentations to give, people to see, a workshop to present: the transition to IPv6.

There were evening sessions, dinners with contacts. I would sometimes see him at the coffee bar or sitting in the atrium with its view of the sea. He’d be working away intensely on his laptop. At the end of another hard day I'd be happy just to sink into that Catalan night; while the Poet was merely bored, I would be ready for sleep.

On the last day, when I woke up, of the Poet himself there was no sign. Only this pregnant poem left on the table.

Frustration

I see your hair strewn awkwardly across your face

Your eyes flick faintly underneath their sleepy lids

Your breath comes gently through your parted lips.

I see your breasts uncovered by their wrapping cloth

Soft targets of my tongue and teeth in days now old

Your browned midriff lies bare and, silently rehearsed

my two hands seem to span and touch and hold.

Your skirt is short, draped artlessly across your glistening thighs

Memories of possession come to me. So many times!

For two weeks now you have repulsed my every move

If this had been our first shared time

You would be written off by now

A pathway growing cold.

I wallow in frustration, thoughts askew

Compulsive need a force I can’t subdue

I want you now with lust and love but can’t have you.

In truth my passions are all meaningless

A primal lust, intruding into consciousness

Abandon this, perhaps seek someone new?

Feed desire with desperate girls to woo?

Empty pleasures, wasted time and money too.

The answer to this crisis? End it here

My pattern turned to drifting dust without a care

But such an act must not imply intent

It must be made to look like accident.

What is it about artistic types? I thought.

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I opened the big glass doors and stepped out onto the balcony. We were high: eight storeys. I could see the pool below, surrounded by recliners warming in the already-scorching morning sun. There was some kind of commotion down there. For a moment I thought of the final lines of the poem. Had my Poet ‘slipped’ off this ledge to fall to his very doom on the harsh white slabs below?

But no, it was just the Germans, released now from the hotel to grab their sunbeds before the British could arrive. I turned back and quickly wrote my own addendum to the Poet’s lament.

I see you, hovering there, just out my sight

You really are a very simple soul

When you at planet Earth alight.

Feed you, clothe you, listen, stroke you, sleep with you

You’re happy, then, to live inside your brain

I see you now, great puppy, wanting sex

And if I gave it, you’d be quite content again.

And why should I? It is my schedule too

And I have better things to do

Than cope with tiresome baths and other people’s sheets.

No dear. Hold to your needs, we’ll be home soon

One night and all this angst you’ll soon forget

And I can live off these industrious weeks

For quite a few months yet.

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My far-from-suicidal Poet joined me for breakfast. The creative mind had required an early walk along the front where uncleared litter, immigrants asleep under palm trees and the lonely slap of wave upon rock could bracket his frustration.

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You will find my collection of short stories, published on Amazon (Kindle and paperback) here:

"Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations: and other stories" (2019)

and my SF novel, also published on Amazon (Kindle and paperback) here:

"Donatien's Children" (2022).

Feel free to purchase both!

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