On the Beach
The world is turnin'...
On the Beach
By Eve Zennarrow
The sun is a skull, it’s glowing and grinning.
I bury my hands in the sand. Slowly.
This sand is cold and black
and made from the ashes of a dead volcano.
Or was it that my head, full of flames, exploded
into a trillion dust particles,
each one carrying its own taste and tune.
Look at the sea, it’s mad!
It’s fuming!
Rage lifts it up, and roar calms it down.
Silver fish on scooters don’t care;
they are riding the waves in pearl helmets
that blind the seagulls at each intersection.
I think I see Neil Young on the beach
over there by that umbrella.
I hope he doesn’t turn away.
Tim Buckley is on the rocks, singing to the siren,
Jeff Mangum flies in the aeroplane over the sea—
wait, was it him who scattered the ashes?
Cut!
Wow!
That is some scene-setting.
I wonder who did the casting on this one.
I start to sing,
and my voice is fading as I sing of love.
I can taste the salt in the air
and see the gasping spot on the horizon
where you are drowning my name.
There’s a beat, beat, beat.
Clams beat under my feet.
I think they say:
“Who decides who’s crazy?
Who decides who’s crazy?
Who decides who’s crazy…”
I lie on my back.
I’m so happy that I become devastated
by a balloon that flies away with your kisses.
And I didn’t even kiss you.
It’s so easy to forget a kiss.
I’ll leave my heart by this crisp water
that makes a melody spinning inside my soul.
My book has music in it;
it helps you not to get carsick.
If you cut it in half,
you can pull out all its pain.
I’ll sing and cry for you.
Look! The sun! It’s sinking!
Somebody save it!
Somebody save the sun!
Oh, it’s too late…
It’s getting dark now.
Back at the hotel,
there’s a surfing fly in my soup.
I wish I had its confidence and eyeliner skills.
She jumps over the onions and carrots, singing:
“Who decides who’s crazy?
Who decides who’s crazy?
Who decides who’s crazy…”
This poem feels like stepping into a mind where wonder, confusion, longing and humour all collide in one trembling breath.
The sun as a “skull” captures that unsettling beauty we feel when the world seems both alive and slightly unhinged.
The volcanic sand reads like the speaker’s own scattered self, as if their thoughts have burst into drifting sparks.
The sea’s wild moods mirror the emotional tides we ride when everything inside us is louder than the world outside.
The musicians appearing like ghosts of memory make the poem feel dreamlike, as if the heart is casting its own film.
When the voice fades “singing of love”, there’s a tenderness that feels painfully recognisable the ache of wanting to be heard.
The clams’ chant ,“Who decides who’s crazy?” becomes a plea for gentleness in a world quick to label what it doesn’t understand.
Joy and devastation sit side by side, fragile as a balloon carrying kisses that never happened.
Leaving the heart by the water feels like a quiet surrender, trusting the sea to hold what the speaker cannot.
Even the fly in the soup becomes a tiny symbol of resilience dancing through absurdity with more confidence than any of us feel.
Lovely!