letters mindful of hands, arched and stroked from the very stone, until an elephantine water runs nettle sand to their granite perch. The broiling heat in this part of the Indies one knows must, posthaste, carry to the humus and flies any modicum of human remains. And, over distant dispatch of time, the elongated sprawl of waves dashing up straight to the shallow's grave, makes memory drawn, any record of the little parish's dead flimsy in the topsy context of soil and undulant peat. A greened isle stares past the feckless scene, past again an aged church noticeboard that scrapes out traces of news worthy of import to the wormy road. Whitewash, the colour of the shackled crypts, casts upon the church a pallor of distraught gray. A goat is seen foraging between such marker stones. The day seems to cut into the marble white detachment of the sarcophagi with abrupt candor. Yet, while the cove pokes like a walking stick, the sun & earth conspire to reclaim this space as their rightful bread. A huge vegetative urge to growth is witness to abundant further life - life in whorls of bamboo shoot, naseberry thatches & canebreak all garnished a short stride across the barrier gate.  [13] 

 

PROSPECTUS

In salt flats, idle pools bunching off the ocean, multi-legged crabs, worsted stalks - sea crimson weed weigh the panoply to heighten my deepening fervour. In the bedrock shanks of spread tidal basins clothed in spools of enveloping brackish water, a plethora teeming with aqua towns and untold gadgetry exists - replete with mimicry including primeval flotilla tanks and broadsheets for spreading their way of life.  [14] 

 

GLADIATORS

No broken visor, emptied glove abandoned cudgel, opened net - only gathering spots on spreading sand. Clang of cymbals wrench of flesh, death is a morsel delectably met.  [15] 

 

OCEAN SEA

All that is eternal is circular. - Aristotle Cueta and Tetuan are outposts within the Arab psyche, frail islets jutting their Islamic consciousness into the infidel mind. A mere eight miles separates the tip of North Africa from Iberia's reclining form. An Arab dhow sits off the port of Tangier where the unsuspecting can lose more than priapic curiosity. Arabia, from Ormuz to Sofala, an empire of sabulous plenitude - shiekdoms, oil rich fiefs, and luxurious enervation. Da Gama rounds the Bight of Africa, needles 

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