How to Walk to the Sea
Follow the footpath past the farm house
dodging mud and deeper ruts
Pass through the bent and rusted gate
the ford choked by balsam and reeds
At the first stile look up to the horizon
vast grey sea, the buzzard.
Ignore the curious sheep, they
fear you and your long stride
Where the field path ends, descend
through bracken and gorse
past wrecked habitations
overgrown walls of granite.
Pass tin workings where bal maidens
crushed the gleaming ore
The clear stream now turns to the cove
the path twists beside it
At the cliff top gaze down at the sea,
it will be very wild and dark–
Climb down avoiding slippery
steps, dripping rocks
Undress, enter the waves,
dive through the surf,
lose whatever has tightened your chest.
Swim.
Martin Rieser is both a poet and visual artist. His interactive installations based on his poetry have been shown around the world, including Understanding Echo shown in Japan 2002, Hosts Bath Abbey 2006, Secret Door Invideo Milan 2006, The Street RMIT Gallery Melbourne 2008/ISEA Belfast 2009, Secret Garden, Phoenix Square 2012/Taipei 2013 and RUR at Glyndebourne in 2014 for REFRAME at the University of Sussex. He has developed mobile artworks using interactive text and image for Leicester, London and Athens and exhibited the Third Woman Interactive film in Vienna, Xian and New York. He runs the Stanza poetry group in Bristol. Published: Poetry Review, Write to be Counted,The Unpredicted Spring 2020, Magma 74, Morphrog 22; Poetry kit; Primers Volume 3, Artlyst Anthology 2020. Alchemist’s Spoon 2022, Shortlisted: Frosted Fire 2019 /2022, Charles Causeley Prize 2020; shortlisted in the WoLF Poetry Competition 2023; runner up Norman Nicholson 2020; Winner of the Hastings Poetry Competition 2021.