The girlfriends in their terracotta shoes danced as they avoided the comb tide.

On the dunes the grasses dreamt but could not taste the fruits of the singing palms

I told them that all journeys were imaginary

They did not believe me

As the evening invaded the day I returned and looking north I counted the fifteen windows of  a high hotel.

The girlfriends had long returned and each was at a window wishing that they could stay

But in secret they all longed for home.

These were their golden years

The seabirds on the magical promenade traded tokens in exchange for food and told tales of their navigation

I did not listen

All journeys are imaginary

I sat on a sandswept seat and watched the crabs count the grains of sand

Without interruption I counted the stars

At midnight we agreed a total

Which exactly matched our calculations

Only the drunken waves disagreed

But they were of no account

I was offered accommodation in a fish carriage

Which I declined as the energy of war still fascinated me

I listened for conflict

But heard only the vacant winds

I felt a fool

All wars are imaginary

I envied those who slept as I could not sleep

This was the shame of my soul

I had received letters from childhood which were charred beyond recognition and the ashes stained my hands.

I could not wash as the sea had retreated from me

The night faded and exposed the scaffold of a hanged man

I envied his journey as I knew all journeys were imaginary

I envied his pleasant thoughts of love

For I had no sensation

In time the sea swept him away and I wrote letters to friends of the event

This was the true romance of prayer

During the day royalty visited and covered me in gold which I buried in their presence

I was condemned to the rocks but did not reach them

My visitors longed for winter funerals as they had come far

I hastened them to wait and picked up a washed bottle and urged that a message be deposited within

I left the bottle in a sand pool

And shattered it upon their departure

Later a child with pearls in her hair handed me a casket

Enclosed was a relic

I thought it stolen and abandoned it for a week

The divisions of my curiosity then took hold of me

And on the eighth day I released the key

Inside was a piece of uncorrupted flesh

On which was written in a minute hand

Vectate

A primitive boat awaited me

I ignored it

But again my curiosity took hold of me

I boarded the boat and lit a solitary lamp

And under a sliced wind headed towards the bay of corpses

The weather suddenly became warmer

But I was not becalmed

As swarms of turquoise flying fish kept my direction true

They fanned me with their transparent wings

And kept me warm at nights

Soon the corpses of the blind barbarians began to float by

Wide eyed in their death

These mad men climbed into my boat

And began to succour at my breast in their hundreds

I felt a suffocation and cast them away

But they returned in greater numbers

And I was consumed as we were dragged together into a black whirlpool

But I did not drown

The feeding frenzy had declined

And the sea was calm once more

My boat had become derelict and was sinking fast

Never would it sail again

I found then that I could swim with ease

And began to cover great distances

Barnacles found their homes on me like a ship ancient in the sea

But I could not see islands

I only sensed them

Many years ceased

Until one sunless day I was cast ashore

On a red island

I thought it uninhabited

Until the wreckers came

They stripped me of all my value and left me naked and bleeding

I clothed myself with the feathers of the friendly gulls

And when composed told them stories of my voyage of many years

My reward was the laughter of landscape

The whole island mocked me

I hid in the spear grass to escape my torment

And soon noticed that an white opaque shell

Had began to form around me

Slowly my emancipated body disappeared from view

And I was mocked no more

I was trapped in a dark but comfortable refuge

I did not want to leave as I felt my body becoming stronger

There was no light although I could hear my solitude

And with this solitude came the warmth

And with this warmth came the silence

And with this silence came my sleep

And with that sleep came my dreams