Sea – This Jolly Beggar

The Old Man and the Sea

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!

The Old Man and the Sea

“Bleu, bleu, l’amour est bleu,” crooned the old man beneath his cap
Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a lad of nineteen
He stood before the sea, and his heart surged piteously
Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a man of thirty-two
“Comme l’eau, comme l’eau qui court,” sang he, wading into surf
Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a cavalier of fifty-four
His blood ran cold as a sea-voice joined in
“Fou comme toi et fou comme moi,”
then down he went
in a sea-embrace
till he sang
no
more.

Continue reading “The Old Man and the Sea”

Sea Tale

Gifts from the sea, some called them. Once there washed up a shack, whole, an eye-catching man within, seal-brown his hair. The tunes he could sing, when the winds around the water took wing.

She spied him sometimes by moonlight at the water’s edge, secretive, saw him take out a seal skin, disappear within, into cold depths. Then one night, twin shapes followed after.

Alone, she managed, bled, bided her time, calling out across the water, “Selkie!” People wondered.

When two children washed ashore, one seal-brown, the other raven-haired, we knew. Far inland, she kept their pelts hidden. Selkies nevermore.

Genre: Folklore 
Word count: 100 
written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's Friday Fictioneers 
click on the frog for more tales of a hundred words or less. 
And join the fun!

3LineTales — Seamus & the Sea

Here’s a little something for Sonya’s Three Line Tales!

Screen Shot 2020-07-24 at 12.23.46 PM — photo by Callum MacAulay

There were only three voices Seamus could hear now: his own, his fiddle’s and the sound of the sea as it washed over him, telling the secrets of the sky and the deep.

“I’m just a poor fiddle player,” Seamus would say to the tourists on the ship when they stayed to listen to his song unveiling secrets of their hearts.

Yet it was just one song, one tune, only one secret he knew: a hidden kingdom unknown to many who listened but could not hear.

Sea Castles

seagulls-sea-640

He had waded out too far
The boy in the sea
Knee-deep he stood
As the tide withdrew
Drawing bridges round his toes
Dipped in seaweed

On a mermaid watch
Spying only undulating glass
Alluring sheets of metal grey,
Gathering towers, sparkling spires,
Sudden with a dragon’s curve

And he, turning away too late
To shore, felt the sand give way
Beneath shifting feet of clay,
Merman knee-deep no longer
Arms flailing, gasping watery riddles

Above the cresting wave
Choking fear and salt water
Blinded eyes seeing royal fury
Losing air, light, sky, dreams
In a torrent of sea

Till he grew legs again
Bones plucked from the foam
Tossed back onto the shore
Spluttering at the eddying pool
From which he rose

Like a bird flapping forgotten wings
Then dropping like a stone
On to his knees
Beside fallen sea castles.

dVerse Poets Pub: OLN #278 Rejoice!
Re-posted on JollyBeggar.com
Originally posted on PilgrimDreams.com