{"id":728,"date":"2015-05-31T17:16:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T17:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olioweb.me.uk\/wordpress_marcus\/?p=728"},"modified":"2024-08-19T16:22:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T16:22:27","slug":"poem-of-the-month-june-2015-koksijde-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/?p=728","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the month, June 2015: Koksijde in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>KOKSIJDE IN MAY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>A typical Belgian resort.<br \/>\n&#8216;The world is full of good people. Only the baddies hit the headlines.&#8217;- <\/em>SOCOTTI<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Shopping street &#8211; an exercise in doing as little as possible,<br \/>\nin non-conceptual awareness, not in the slightest judgmental.<\/p>\n<p>Reciting <em>Namo Amida Butsu<\/em> at sunny intersections,<br \/>\nwatching the awkward movement of traffic, the smiles on passing faces.<br \/>\nI now realize that beauty and ugliness are one and the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>Like a well trained basset hound I follow my wife and sister-in-law,<br \/>\nchatting uninterrupted, at a snail&#8217;s pace, from one shop to the next.<br \/>\nOther people&#8217;s worlds and ideas can be a source of inspiration:<br \/>\n<em>Het anders zijn van de anderen is de sleutel tot mijn geluk.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Somewhere in this seaside town of boys on skateboards, pensioners arm-in-arm,<br \/>\nclothes for a million keizers and half empty middle-class restaurants<br \/>\nlives a Buddha, the compassionate all-seeing saviour of souls &#8211;<br \/>\nalmost as unobtrusive but ever-present as the patient sea.<\/p>\n<p>Our stroll has brought us to that! <em>Namo Amida Butsu<\/em> it murmurs<br \/>\nto the sparsely populated beach, an everlasting litany.<br \/>\nWave after creamy wave repeats the Name, roar of a distant lion.<br \/>\nSon of a sea-dog, I stand perplexed at the rail and take it all in.<\/p>\n<p>The streets are covered in sand. Hearty old gentlemen greet each other.<br \/>\nOutside the butcher&#8217;s a baby in a pram is licking an ice-cream.<\/p>\n<p>While I jot notes outside, my guides disappear into <em>Distant Horizons<\/em>,<br \/>\na gay and garish emporium selling all except poetry.<\/p>\n<p>In another fancy boutique trousered dummies show off their bottoms.<br \/>\nThrough the door I watch a chihuahua tug its owner to a tearoom.<\/p>\n<p>-Nice, and not too pricey, confides my well-dressed wife, enjoying herself.<\/p>\n<p>When night falls four hours from now this town will be completely deserted.<br \/>\nWhere will they be, the boys in groovy casual wear, the girls on scooters?<br \/>\nThe camera never came out of my pocket. Will I see them in dreams?<\/p>\n<p>Surely there is room in the Pure Land for everyone in Koksijde.<br \/>\nPerhaps this poem will inspire some painter a hundred years from now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KOKSIJDE IN MAY A typical Belgian resort. &#8216;The world is full of good people. Only the baddies hit the headlines.&#8217;- [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}