Plakias

The weather’s so hot here in Plakias
You end up with rather a tacky ass.

The poor little shark in the pool

Lonely and friendless,
The days seemed so endless
For the poor little shark in the pool.
There was just him, with
Nobody to swim with
In the water so fresh and so cool.
Only him, all alone,
Swimming round on his own,
Rejected, abandoned, forsaken,
Though up on the edge,
‘Neath the palm-fronded hedge,
The loungers all seemed to be taken.

But the children stayed dry,
He could not fathom why
Those humans stayed out of the water.
Whene’er one came near,
The mother, in fear,
Would snatch up their son or their daughter.
He’d no cause to harm them!
His grin would soon charm them,
And then he would not be so lonely.
If only they’d get in
Just suffer a wettin’,
If only, if only, if only.

But no-one jumped in
So the solit’ry fin
Just circled around in the water.
A triangular marker,
Like graphite but darker,
Like the sail of a yacht, only shorter.
Lonely and friendless,
The days seemed so endless
For the poor little shark in the pool.
There was just him, with
Nobody to swim with
In the water so fresh and so cool.

Racketeers

Oh there are creatures in the trees
That are making quite a racket.
The decibels rise by degrees
And Monica can’t hack it.

Are they cicadas we enquire?
Perhaps a herd of cricket?
Whatever, it’s a raucous choir
And Monica can’t stick it.

The Cretans do not seem to hear
The racket they are making,
Deaf to that projected cheer
That sets the eardrums quaking.

Nothing falls out of the tree
Whene’er I try to shake it.
The noise is rising deaf’ningly
And Monica can’t take it.

Baby goat

Yessir, they’ll serve you baby goat,
Prepare it at your bidding.
It is a Cretan dish of note
And no, I am not kidding.

Plakias and Bob Dylan

Yes and what are the towels on my balcony doing,
Flapping around to get dry?
Yes and what are the crumbs of my croissant doing
As they disappear in the sky?
Yes and what are we doing in Plakias
In the middle of July?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,
The answer is blowing in the wind.

Said George

A little piece of Paradise
Beneath the Cretan sun.
To fattened eyes, a little slice
Of how things once were done.
But oh that wind!
That howling wind
That whistled down the gorge,
Like Zeus’s choice
And vengeful voice
‘Gainst those who’ve sinned,
Said George.

Tavernas lounging on the beach
And gazing o’er the bay.
How much their languidness can teach
The tourist of today!
But oh that breeze!
That rampant breeze
That whistled down the gorge,
Like banshee shrieks
From limestone peaks
To basking seas,
Said George.

The little winding thoroughfares,
The pots of homemade jam,
The whistling as the chef prepares
A kleftika of lamb.
But oh that gale!
That constant gale
That whistled down the gorge,
Like waves that pound
The stony ground
And make gods quail,
Said George.

The cricketing grasshopper

On the steps in a manner improper,
Far away from the rye grass and thicket,
We first came upon this grasshopper
(Or it might well have been a large cricket.)

Half way up to our first-floor apartment,
It seemed to have OD-ed on brandies.
It was green in the colouring department
And it’s legs were quite spindly, like Ghandi’s.

It sat like a large green back-stopper
Engaged in a long game of cricket,
This quite paralytic grasshopper,
Far away from the rye grass and thicket.

For three days, it sat there unmoving
On the stairs that led up to our landing,
Once more conclusively proving
There are things that defy understanding.

At last I decided to flick it
And discovered it had come a cropper.
So we said our goodbyes to the cricket
(Or maybe ‘twas just a grasshopper.)