Stupidaggini

 

Copyright 2023 James C Horner

 

1.

Sprinting toward the waves, I dive in all sweaty.

Air is bracing, surfer son is racing.

Atop his white Matt Kechele*, he spies the jetty

slippery with the black dragon-tooth rocks facing

him. It is raining. I thought I heard a rumble.

 

Lifted up on the roller’s dome, water turns chrome.

Storm-driven crests topple, a briny smash

I swallow. And I tumble. And I stumble.

 

I suppose this is fun, rolling in the foam.

Sand sucks beneath my toes on the backwash.

And where is Hervé in these heaving waves and swash?

2.

Hervé’s surfboard is wedged in the jetty.

To retrieve it, he dives, current outpacing.

Are you serious? A board? That’s so petty!

He pops up! White Kechele with its tracing.

Atop his talisman, I guess he won’t grumble.

He lets loose a triumphant yell in the laughing gulls’ home.

Not for Hervé to ever talk trash;

after that fumble, time to be humble.

 

How could I encourage this? I feel the rain like a lash.

In plain sight of the mansions, I’m lost in the slosh,

not sipping mojitos, not exactly posh.

 

3

High tide: the dragon blinks at us on the jetty.

It can see our lives interlacing

on some adventure, like hunting a Yeti,

or a dragon, hero and fool interfacing.

Stormy swim in salty mash, like a jumble

of epic and farce where Quijote himself would roam.

 

Every stupid stunt begins with a mad dash,

glorified, transformed before the Big Crumble.

 

 

***

Matt Kechele, who pioneered the aerial in surfing, also founded his own surf shop in Florida with the eponymous “Matt Kechele” hand-shaped surfboards.

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