That man with rheumy eyes,

what of him,

emerging from the sea?

He's been alternating crawl

and breast stroke this last half-hour,

a hundred yards of each,

and, in between, has stood waist-deep

gulping air. Underfoot

shingle rumbles silently;

there are silver spirals of small fish.

He's conscious of his body,

its shape and lengthening history,

grossly white and foreign,

an axolotl, dead-frog rubbery.

Pretending to diffidence,

he entertains the thought

that he's amusing,

harmlessly ‘different’

to those brown ones

lounging under tamarisks.

They watch him twisting water

from his trunks, wriggle into

shorts, yank a t-shirt on,

flaunt his day-late Guardian.

Behind him

on the concrete road

there's an ancient tinkle

and clopping of panniered mules

over a ground bass of rip-

roaring scooters. Something

that looks like a hornet

is keeping a beady eye on him.

A Greek friend says he himself

takes advantage of

the sharpness and clarity

to investigate

less pleasant things in life,

links the birth of tragedy

with the quality of the light:

blind Oedipus, Antigone's cave,

Persephone clasped

in the pitch-black arms of Dis.

That's Greeks for you,

going on about

these ‘scowling times’,

when all you want to do

is tuck in to calamari, sip ouzo,

finish the crossword,

or simply, on a day like this,

take in the view!

Lifting a camera

to one eye, he clicks,

winds on.