Simon Haworth

Blue

Blue

Months on it recurs in disparate forms,
the famous blue of those ubiquitous chairs
in orderly rows, sun loungers and parasols,
striped blue on bone white sand,
the graduated blue of the middle of August
reflected in the tinted lenses of new
sunglasses bought to replace a pair left at home.
Certain tiles – Odysseus’ spear tip,
Polyphemus’ beard, Charybdis’ eyes,
a Siren’s headband – Hellenic blue laid in
mosaics adorning thirteen steps
in the park above the port, sections of
the play area surfacing that you pass
going up or down them painted childish blue,
then the corporate blue lettering on the ferries
arriving from Corsica and Sardinia
that unload and load up again and fade off
into the azure blue of the sea itself.
Swimming pool blue on a rooftop with a bar
and a view over to the five domes
of St Nicholas, orthodox blue; Yves Klein blue
holding sway in the museum of modern art,
a print, one of Matisse’s blue nudes
hung over the bed in the hotel room.

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