'Surviving the Storm' by Alan Smart

Our boat left at dusk. Five inexperienced sailors rowing out into a lightly rolling sea, joyful at the breeze in our hair and spray on our faces. In no time we are barely in sight of the shore. The rowing becomes steadily harder as the waves heighten imperceptibly, rocking the boat and forcing our breath to come in gasps. We smile at each other, calling encouragement to stifle our apprehension.

Stephen, our leader, is surveying the sea cautiously: we mustn’t drift too far out into the bay. But the change in tide catches us unprepared and we are pulled further from the shore. As the sky darkens, we feel the wind whipping up into a storm; an angry swell takes control of the boat, steering us out to sea. Before we are even aware of it, the pale light of dusk becomes an eerie darkness and our tiny craft feels lost beneath an endless, starless black.

We are frightened now, unable to steer the boat, our rowing uncoordinated, fighting the swell. Suddenly the gloom is broken by a piercing light. Across the bay we see its reflection shattering the sea’s surface and illuminating the shoreline. From afar, the homing signal of the lantern draws us in, cheers our shivering bodies, brings relief to our anxious faces. Pulling now at the oars with all the strength we can muster, our arms burning with the effort, we feel renewed energy. We fight the waves and turn the boat back towards the shore.

'Come on lads, row hard now,' cries Stephen. 'Keep pulling, keep pulling, we’re almost there.'

The boat lands on the beach; we stumble out onto the sand, exhausted with effort, cold with shock; the lighthouse looming above, warming us back to life. 

'Winners vs Losers' by C.S. Bowerman

I win. I throw my raging waves to your shore.   I know I am stronger.   I eat you away.   I change your shape.    With fury you feel my bites.   There is no escape.   With gentle caresses I will seduce your sands.   Without you realising, I will still be winning.    I am greater than you.   My arms reach wide whilst you huddle like a ball of garden twine.    I expand and breathe.   I can watch you dissolve if I wish, or I can turn away and find another horizon.   Life is in me.   Hidden or visible.   Known and unknown.   I sustain as I wish.   At all times I win.

And at all times I lose.   My angry waves cannot digest polymers and plastic bottles.   Plastics that hold me in, imprison me at source, that feed the arid land lubbers, who throw them back to taunt me.  Your plastics strangle my creatures and choke my white horses.   They cough and vomit on my radiant crystal shallows.   Too much debris for even one as tremendous as I.   My outrage is vast.   Bubbling emerald fires from the ocean floors.   Thunderous and crashing attacks that I spit on you with disdain.   I do steal but my nature is not as cruel as yours.   I take but with grace and oh so slowly.    You bite my blue hands.   Tie them with polythene.    

Magnificent fury fights diminutive ignorance.   A fight to the death.

 

 

 

'New Year Celebrations at Sea' by Asha Krishna

The fishing boats are watching me carefully today, they know the signs. That fancy
house on the cliff does not. It is busy revelling in my fluid expanse through its see-
through walls. Last night, the guests spent hours on the deck aiming empty bottles
into me, lazily wondering if I would swell up to the challenge of drawing them in.

Not like this surfer, dancing on my watery curves. He knows me too well, regretfully.
Last time, swirling to the rhythm of the wind, I pulled him in for a laugh, letting him go
just before the thrill turned into smoke. He is back now, just not playful as before.

Ah, there is the cruise ship, its sauntering movements sizing me up from afar. It will
soon move away, I know, towards a less dramatic route. The naïve vessel. It has no
idea that it is heading straight into rough weather the minute it hits the shore.

'I Am' by Lynda McMahon

I am water. I am power. My waves are juggernauts, milling and re-milling the sand into silky softness. They are crashing, powerful, pounding; I create towers of water rising to unfeasible heights before they sink the puny vessels upon my surface.

Today, yesterday and tomorrow are held in the breath beat of my surf and surface. Each of my foaming, surging torrents fiercely demands that you,

     “Listen, listen, listen to me, me, me...”

I am sea. I am water. I am all in all. Prehistorical, ahistorical, I was here in the beginning and will roar through the storm until the end when I will rage with power still. Alpha and Omega I will consume the land. And wait.

'The Sea' by Tilly Greenland

You can scream at me as much as you want; I will always drown you out.

You can bellow and scream, throw your fists in the air and stamp your feet; I will
always come back.

You can hurl stones at me.

You can spit and curse at me.

You can do all this and I will still come back.

When you scream, I will send the wind to snatch your breath from your lungs.

When you throw stones, I will send my waves to whip around your ankles and knees.

When you curse, I will lash you with spray.

When you are empty and lie upon the sand, broken, whimpering, I will pick you up
and carry you away.

'Body of Water' by Katie Oliver

I’d booked myself an appointment when my belly had started to roil over and over: churning, rocking, roaring with no respite. My limbs flailed and crashed and I foamed at the fingertips. I’d become erratic, violent; I tipped over one boat after the other, scattering my own face with tiny writhing bodies that tickled my nostrils. Frustrated, I smashed the empty vessels on nearby rocks. The whales raised their eyebrows at one another and sulked down deep to avoid my rage.

‘Have you eaten anything unusual lately, something that could have caused this?’ asked the doctor. As a matter of fact I had, although not by choice: a draft of crude oil had been served up last week, viscous dark poison sliding down my gullet along with several tarred, dead seabirds - I’d been burping up feathers for days. A capsized cargo of designer flip flops had got stuck in my teeth and no amount of seaweed could floss them out. Lumps lodged in my throat turned out to be plastic bottles; sometimes I could cough them up on a beach without any drama, but on other days they made me retch until a tidal wave of salty vomit rushed out and smashed into the land. I’d flattened entire civilizations with the strength of my sickness.

‘Goodness me, no wonder your stomach is unsettled,’ the doctor exclaimed. ‘And it certainly explains the mood swings.’ He patted me gently with a damp hand and offered up a watery smile. ‘But as you know, there’s not much I can offer other than moral support,’ he sighed. ‘Us bodies of water are rather at the mercy of others.’

I swirled out noisily, the current pulling me home. Destined to churn and rock and roar until they could find something to help with the pain.