Now Reading: Sunday Surf Poem: The Surf Rider by Jack Crawford Jr.
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Sunday Surf Poem: The Surf Rider by Jack Crawford Jr.
Sunday Surf Poem: The Surf Rider by Jack Crawford Jr.
I do hope you enjoy reading and listening to the surf poems as much as I enjoy finding and reciting them. Here’s another of our Sunday Surf Poems. I give you The Surf Rider by Jack Crawford Jr.
You’d think that in this day and age one cannot remain anonymous. Yet I cannot find any information on Jack Crawford Jr., the poet who wrote The Surf Rider, which was published in December 1967. The only Jack Crawford I am familiar with is an FBI agent from The Silence of the Lambs. I guess we’ll just let the poem speak for itself. It’s a good one.
the surf rider
By Jack Crawford Jr.
O the gull of the boy coming on the wings of his arms
In the bare hush of the bracken wind, and the glistening
Wave rushing. His board is banter on the bells of curved
Crests. How drives the sea this boy’s
Splendid car! His body delicate as gull.
Poised on stance, pressing gently his feet,
Shooting the wave’s fare in foaming whisper.
Delicate as a moment. Delicate as gull wing.
Dripping Sea-god. Locks, curled, Greek. Throat
Lifting wide on wave of motion. Arms
Delicate as balance, exquisite as bird breast his body.
O boy of the board, plunging, crisscrossing on whispers,
Swift to float his moment on.
Rider, hold in your delicacy the perilous balance!
Foam hissed whisper. Hold in the peril of the white
Rump you ride. The horse of board on which your feet
Banter. Slapping flat. And then the stinging drop.
O curling
Crest. Hasten on the speeding hung
Hill of fury, foaming,
Delicate! Delicate!
Do not lose that fingertip of balance. There lie below
Brute bones of rock and war, bones the Sirens hurled
From bloody lips to heaps. Do not lose that fine,
That intricate balance, in rude foam sucked, spun.
Stay on the speeding whisper—aloft the breathless curl.
Swerve past sunken hulls. Past heads
Drowning among centuries. Broken breasts.
Fires, crucifixions, wars, beasts.
Flicker of short swords, hurled hiss of spears.
Muffled, hugged grunts. Crossbow’s shiver—hard struck.
