Tag: Sea

Spate and Salt | Haiku

Waves crashing against a sea wall

From fresh to saltwater today in a couple of haiku…

A river rushing over boulders and pebbles.

Spate

Through spate and death-drought,

Boulders rounded, pebbles smoothed –

Cold river-crafted.

Waves crashing against a sea wall.

Salt

Salt murmurations.

Tops and troughs, feeling, pressing,

Weaving sea walls, slow.

Thanks for reading, folks. Second image courtesy of Greg Hartmann. My recent short stories include ‘Bellahouston‘ and ‘Echoes‘.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.

A Storm-Topped Sky | Short Story

Eternal rest, my father told me when I was a bairn. The long sleep, he had soothed. It hasn’t proved that way for me – there is little rest for those lost at sea. It isn’t the spring tides or the curling undertow that trouble me – vagaries of current are no longer my concern. It is the yearning that keeps me from my rest.

Continue reading “A Storm-Topped Sky | Short Story” →

Shiver

On days like this I struggle to believe it happened. It did, though – right here on this beach.

Ankle-high rollers curl in over the pebbles, just a trace of foam on the forerunners as they lazily reach up the brown sand. It’s flat calm as far as the eye can see, with matted grey clouds reflected back up towards the sky.

As changeable as the sea, they say. If only that were true. Since you were taken from me one spring morning I’ve tried to follow, I really have. I’ve waded out from our private little beach, out as far as you did that day. The undertow signs promise much but deliver little. I haven’t felt so much as a tickle around my ankles when I’ve stood waist deep out there.

I could weight myself down of course, be dragged beneath the waves as Virginia Woolf was. That seems too serene though, not at all like your experience. I want to fight the tow the same way that you did. I want to hear the pebbles rattle and shift underneath me, to see the sun’s rays slant down through the sediment-heavy water as I strain for the surface.

No such luck today. The saltwater laps gently around my chest, languidly stirred into movement by the limpest of winds. It’s not even chilly.

I shiver nonetheless. A man who has experienced shipwreck shudders at even a calm sea. They say that, too.

 

***Thanks for reading folks. Any comments much appreciated!***