Sky-Guy for the Strayed Eye

The sky is in the sand,
That blend of sea and land,
Where ribbled pools
Make optic fools
Of eyes that stray or strand.


Peri-Performative Post-Scriptum

This poem is my sub-Housmanesque attempt to capture the sight of sky reflected in pools between wave-ribbed sand, so that there seemed to be another world floating there. I don’t like “optic fools”, where the adjective is obtrusively un-Anglish. But I also considered “photic fools”, for the alliteration. In the end, I might have used “eyeish fools”, if it hadn’t meant I couldn’t use “eyes” in the final line. Alternatives like “Of all that…” or “Of those that…” didn’t seem good. Oh, and “Sky-Guy” uses guy in the sense of “trick” or “hoax”, not as it’s used in the title of the TV program paronomasized in the title of this post.

Brine Shine

Study of waves, wave-crests and foam by the Armenian artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900)

Aivazovsky was a citizen of Imperial Russia whose name is Հովհաննես Այվազյան in Armenian and Иван Айвазовский in Russian.