Artscape

"One of the guests, Nigel Stevens, is a poet of note who has had several books of poetry published, no mean feat if I might say so."

"Yeah I know him, I find his work a pretentious antipodean take on the work of some of the romantic English poets."

"Well, when he has the floor, tell him that. That should get the ball rolling, as long as you can follow it up with a constructive comment. Can you manage that?"

"Just you watch me. That gives me an idea."

"What is it?"

"What do you think Giles will say if our relationship runs hot and cold?"

"It will confuse him I would imagine."

"Good. When I comment on Nigel's poetry I will come up with a poem of my own, it's just a piece of amusing doggerel, you will leap to Nigel's defence and tell me that my poem is so much crap. I will get all huffy and spout another poem that is deep and meaningful. You will proclaim it an insightful work and declare me a genius. This will drag Nigel into the argument, and probably Giles. I will then come up with a poem that basically tells them all that I can't see the point in poetry.."

"You have such works?"

"Yes. I think that you should read them so that you can make suitable comments."

"Is this a ploy to get me into your bungalow?"

"No. I was hoping that you would invite me to yours."

"I suppose that I could do that. But either way, would we get any work done?

"Of course, but it won't take long."

We called into my bungalow on our way to hers. I took a folder from my bag that had some of my writing in it. It took us a while to leave mine for hers. We were somewhat dishevelled following our interlude, although we never got to the intercourse stage, that would come later.

I went to her kitchenette and made us a cup of herbal tea while she read through the poems that I had selected for our purpose. She chuckled over some lines as the brew brewed. "I see what you mean, amusing doggerel followed by observational and meaningful, followed by a needle to a balloon, this could be interesting."

Interesting it was, and better than we had hoped. Giles was dragged into our conversation earlier than anticipated. We had been invited to dine at Giles' table, along with Nigel. I got the impression that Giles was going to drag me into a discussion on poetry just so that he could put me down, and by extension Sophie who continued to not only dodge his advances, but ignore him totally. We whispered to each other and kissed on many occasions, something that did not go un-noticed by our host.

Nigel had just finished reciting his latest poem, to the enthusiastic applause of those others at the table. "What do you think of this Sophie?" When Sophie failed to respond on cue, Giles tapped his glass with a knife. "Do pay attention Sophie." She looked at him. "I asked you what you thought of Nigel's poem."

"Oh I'm sorry, I was distracted." She kissed me again to identify me as the distraction. "It's not much use asking me about poetry, I know nothing of it."

This was Giles' cue to focus on me. "How about you Michael? What do you think of it?"

"I too was somewhat distracted and it was just so much background noise, but from what little I heard of it, I would say that it was typical of his over-blown and poor imitation of the works of those he holds so dear to his heart, the English romantic poets. Rhyming words and metre are not the only ingredients of good poetry."

"And I suppose that you can back up your argument?" Giles said.

"If you wish. This is something that I wrote on one of my many drives in the country. It has words that rhyme, it has structure, all the elements that Nigel holds dear, but it's not good poetry. It's called An Ode to Mister Birdseye."

Thirty million years ago, or was it thirty three,

Mr Birdseye marketed the three minute pea.

It came to me one day, midst nowhere,

Driving through the middle of nothing,

There stood one solitary tree,

On its own a tree.

I had been in the car forever, no relief,

No stop, when I spied that lonely tree.

Salvation, I cried, relief at last and no

Other car in sight, not a soul to see.

I stood there unseen, for there was no-one

To see behind that tree.

The road that for so long had been free

Of other cars, slowly filled from either side,

With a hundred thousand cars, all driving by,

Slowly, so that all inside could see,

Me having, in full view of all, a birds-eye,

A bladder easing, blissful, three minute pee."

"It's doggerel I know, but it has the elements, it tells a story, paints a picture of a life event, and it rhymes in places."

"It is drivel." Giles said. "The kind of thing a high school kid would write for an assignment, not the work of a serious poet."

"I agree with you." That surprised him.

"What do you think of this Sophie?" Giles asked her, waiting to see if she was to support me or oppose me.

She looked at me as if to beg my forgiveness even before she spoke. "In my honest opinion, I think that it's so much rubbish. Not something that I can accept as a serious work at all." She looked at me, a coldness came over her gaze as if she was having second thoughts about us.

"Again I agree, it's not serious, but then not all poetry is. Take for instance the work of Ogden Nash, he was famous for not being serious. If you want serious, how about this one. I wrote this just before last Christmas as I walked through a shopping mall. I was feeling a tad depressed over the ending of what I had hoped would be a lasting relationship with a beautiful and, as I was to find out, self absorbed woman."

"Alone, alone, alone

Not lonely, just alone.

I look around me at the sea

Of lonely faces looking at me.

Looking at me. but not seeing.

Seeing only themselves.

Them greedy bloody selves.

The cash registers of their minds

Totalling the value of affection.

Why have we created this

Society that teaches our children

That self comes first.

First and foremost,

First and last,

First and in between.

If you do not give me what I want

I'll not love you any more.

Give, give, 'til there's no more

To give, then give some more.

How can you say you loved me,

When that love has betrayed

The one true love of your life.

How can you reconcile

Your faithlessness to yourself,

Your adultery with another,

Any other.

I can live with myself, alone

Not lonely, but live I can."

"Wow! Your hurt really comes out in that." Sophie said, "She must have hurt you badly for you to be so angry." She kissed me. "I could never hurt anyone like she hurt you. For me to enter into a relationship with a man, I would have to be certain of not only my own feelings towards him, but his feelings towards me. Casual couplings are not my scene at all." She glared at Giles as she said this. Again she kissed me, her arms around my neck. "Of you and, with you, I am sure."

"Stop this!" Giles stood, glaring at us. "I didn't invite you here to have it off with this media hack."

"Then why did you invite me?" Sophie smiled sweetly at him, "did you think that I would go to bed with you, you Lothario."

I liked that word, Lothario, it described him to a 'T'. "People, let us not have any fighting here." I said "As you may or may not know, I am a serious, at times, writer of prose. I have for you a poem that demonstrates my feelings for the poetic arts. It is called an Ode to Poetry."

How I wish I had the turn

Of poetic phrase, to wax

Lyrical about an urn,

Or describe the utter thrill,

Of trampling through a sea,

Of yellow, waving daffodils.

Or the earth shaking thunder,

Of yet another military blunder.

But these are things I don't see,

When I look round about me.

I see instead a sunburnt sky,

And fields of grasses arid, dry

Parched lands on every hand,

For I live in a different land,

From those poets, foisted on me,

That made me despise their poetry.

There was movement at the station,

The train was coming in,

It brought no great elation,

Nothing inspiring was within,

This mundane world around me,

It inspired me not at all,

There was nothing to astound me,

My rhyme has hit a wall.

So I guess that I'll be one of those,

Who will find his muse in prose.

I think it quite absurd,

To have to find a word,

That sounds just the same,

As the very word that came,

At the end of the previous line,

When a non-rhyming word works just fine."

"It is bad enough having to find the right word in your writing, but to have to rhyme it with something else is just so much pretension. I can wax just as lyrical in prose as any Poet can in verse."

"Prove it!" Giles challenged me.

"Okay, try this on for size." I looked at Sophie. "Two gentle zephyrs caressed my cheeks as her breath eased from her nostrils. Her lips close to mine paused as her tongue gave them a final sheen, just before they were joined with mine. A bolt of electricity shot through me at her touch, a contented sigh escaped her lips as they met mine. Her hand alighted softly on my cheek, a gentle request for me to stay where I was. Behind closed lids my eyes remembered her blue eyes, half closed, half opened, seeing all and seeing nothing, Glistening drops of happiness paused briefly on her lower lids before coursing down her cheek, to rest in the corner of my mouth, their saltiness sharp on my tongue. 'I love you.' I whispered, my voice heard only by her. 'I love you.' She sighed in reply, her voice soft as mine. 'Hold me, please hold me." She begged me. Her free arm snaked around my neck and she drew me closer, her body pressed against mine, her hips thrust against mine, against my loins, my loins wakened from their slumber, my manhood stirring, ready for what was to come, ready to proclaim my love for my love. 'I love you.'' I whispered to her. 'I love you,' my cock told her body. She said nothing in reply. Her body replied, actions speak louder than words."

Sophie came to me, the look on her face could mean only one thing. Her arms were around my neck, her body pressed close to mine, her lips on mine. "I love you." Enough said.

Giles was not a happy camper. He stood, glared at the two of us and stormed out of the room.

"So you don't like poetry or poets." Nigel asked me.

"Did I say that?" I sounded shocked. "Generally speaking, I don't have a problem with Poets and poetry. I do have a problem with Poets who think that Keats, Wordsworth and their like are the only true Poets, and to be good themselves," I looked straight at Nigel, "they have to be imitated. Like all artistic endeavours there are styles and there are styles. Take for instance, McKinley here, who thinks that a portrait has to be as close to a photograph as possible, while other Portrait Artists, like Sophie here, use a more interpretive style that allows the sitter's personality to shine from the canvas. McKinley's style is mono-dimensional, while Sophie's has two, sometimes three dimensions to them. The same goes for poetry, the traditional, if done badly, and many of them are, are mono-dimensional, they lack personality."

"I'm sure that there are not many people who agree with you." McKinley stated.

"Maybe not, but I know of one artist who did. William Dobell, who caused a stir by winning the Archibald in 1943 with his portrait of Joshua Smith, said that, I might not get this exactly right, but the gist of what he said was this; So long as people expect paintings to be simply coloured photographs they get no individuality, and in the case of portraits, no characterisation. The real artist is trying to depict his subject's character, and to stress the caricature, but at least it is art which is alive.' And I agree with that, it is more alive that a stiff posed likeness of some dignitary, complete with medals, that is seldom the real character of the person. And what I have seen of Sophie's work, she has the ability to portray the character of her subject." I used the words 'portray' and 'character' deliberately to re-inforce my argument.

"I might have known that you would stick up for her. I doubt that your reasons for so doing are any more than carnal."

"Thank you for that McKinley," Sophie said, "you have just confirmed to me that the sole reason that I was invited here was carnal. You pay good money to come here on the understanding that there will be young, and suitably willing to please young, women here for your delectation. For your information, I am not interested in allowing you, or Giles, wherever he is, access to me, or my body."

"But you and Michael here have. . . "

"Have what?"

"Had sex."

"No. For your information, while I like Michael, even if he liked me, that is not enough for me to let him make love to me."

"I don't believe that, when you came back in at lunch it was obvious what you had been doing."

"Looks can be deceiving. Tell him Michael."

"Sophie and I decided that we would try to fool you into thinking that we had made love. It is obvious that we were successful. If you really must know, we have not had sex."

"But Giles told us . . . " McKinley stopped, realising that he had almost said too much.

"I know what Giles would have told you. That is his big selling point, and why he can charge you guys so much to stay here, it is the unlimited supply of young, nubile women at your beck and call. That is what this meat market is all about, providing you with temporary muses to take your minds off the fact that you're not getting any at home."

"Before you leap to Giles' defence," Sophie cut in, "The argument that I was having with Giles yesterday was all about me not wanting to be yet another trophy to hang on his wall. I did not see that it would enhance my career one iota if I gave in to him."

Somehow I got the impression that there was about to be a revolution of sorts. The other women at our table looked at each other, looked at Sophie and smiled.

The gathering broke up shortly after that and we all went to our own bungalows. Sophie and I walked together, conscious of Giles' watchful eye peering through the gap in his curtain. "What are you doing in the morning?" I asked Sophie.

"Well, I was going for a walk, why?"

"I was just about to suggest that very thing. There's a track leading down to the beach. I just love to walk along the beach when I need to think."

She grabbed my hand and skipped around to face me. "So do I. Especially when it's blowing a gale. The salt spray in my face, the sound of the pounding waves, it sort of cleanses my mind and I can see more clearly." She stopped walking backwards and we met, our arms around each other. It wasn't much of a kiss as time goes, but it made up for the speed with its passion. "We had better stop. Tomorrow morning we can walk the beach and sort this through, whether we want to take our relationship to the next level, or forget about each other and go our separate ways."

"I know how I feel, but we need to look at all angles, like what is our motivation, is it that we are falling in love, or is it just to stick it up Giles?"

"We'll see what tomorrow brings. Goodnight my . . . dammit, what the heck. Goodnight my darling." With that she kissed me again, and skipped down the path to her bungalow.

Giles made sure that we sat at different ends of table for breakfast. Sophie was seated next to him and he tried to engage her in conversation for the whole meal. I could see that her answers were short and perfunctory, as if she couldn't wait to be free of him. She excused herself from his presence as soon as she had finished her cup of herbal tea. "Giles, I must leave you to your breakfast, I have work to do, but the inspiration is somehow lacking. I am going for a walk on the beach, alone."

I made my excuses to my breakfast companions and left a minute or so later. I saw Giles glance in my direction out of the corner of my eyes, but didn't look directly at him. Back in my bungalow I changed into shorts and a tee shirt. A straw hat and sandals along with zinc cream on my nose to prevent sunburn, completed my ensemble.

Sophie was waiting for me at the foot of the track, dressed in a batik print top that was almost see-through, it was obvious that she wore no bra, and a pair of denim shorts that had been cut from an old pair of jeans. She wore no make-up and looked naturally beautiful. I led her into the bushes and kissed her with as much passion as I dared. "That is to help you think. Now, we have two options here. The first is that we can discuss our situation as we walk. The second is that we can walk without speaking to each other, and try to clear our minds of any extraneous thoughts. I find the alone time on occasions such as this, to be more beneficial."

"God Michael, this is too perfect. I can walk along a crowded beach and be alone, shut off from the world around me. I need that to think." It was her turn to kiss me. "That will have to keep us going for a while, until clarity presents itself."

"I agree."

We walked side by side, not touching physically, but spiritually we were closely joined, and this feeling got stronger as the minutes ticked away.

I don't know how much later it was, I wasn't wearing a watch, before we both stopped. There was a mischievous look on Sophie's face. With a deft motion her top swished over her head and hit the sand, to be followed in quick succession by her shorts, leaving only a pair of brief panties. "Last one in's a rotten egg." She yelled as she ran for the surf.

My shirt and shorts hit the sand and I was down to just my budgie smugglers (Speedo bathers). I ran after her and dived into a wave, surfacing beside her. As I came up for air she pushed my head under and I swallowed a bit of water. While I was under the water I grabbed her panties and tugged them down, emerging spluttering but triumphant, her panties raised above my head.

"Two can play at that game." Before I could react she had my bathers down to my knees. That was as far as she went because her attention was moved to my cock, which wasn't all that impressive in the cold water, but with a little encouragement from her hand, it rose to the occasion. "My what have we here?" She asked, pulling my bathers the rest of the way down my legs.

"If you must know, it is my cock, and if you keep doing that I will not be held responsible for my actions." If I thought that she would desist, I was badly mistaken. We had drifted onto a sandbar some twenty metres from the beach and I was able to stand. Her feet were still a couple of centimetres from the sand, so I pulled her to me. As we came together she opened her legs and my cock was between them, not yet in her pussy, but the way that we were going it wouldn't be long.

Her arms around my neck, and my bathers forgotten and drifting in the sea, she kissed me, fiercely, passionately. "I love you. There I've said it. I love you so very much and what are we going to do about that?"

"Get married?"

"Be serious. We've known each other a couple of days and you want to get married?"

"Yes, I want to get married, and the sooner the better. I don't want to wait, I don't want to allow someone else the opportunity to sweep you off your feet, and steal you from me."

"You are serious, aren't you?"

"Never been more serious. What do you say?"

"You can't expect a girl to give you an answer right away. I need some time to think." She looked at me for several minutes, during which time I wished that I could read minds. I concentrated my mind on willing her to say yes. "That's enough time," She said suddenly as she smiled at me and my heart missed a beat, "I say yes. Let's get married!" She kissed me.

Our perfect moment was spoiled by a rogue wave that broke over us, dumping us onto the sand. Laughing and spluttering we held each other until we had regained our breath before kissing again. We were oblivious of the waves washing over us as we joined as one for the first time. This moment could have been spoiled if it weren't for the fact that my cock had embedded itself inside her before the water had a chance to wash her juices from the entrance to her pussy, it slid comfortably in and out of her. Once I was inside her the waves couldn't spoil our first moment.