To Lie, at last alone, in dirty sheets
I can't be bothered to wash and dry,
look at botched and peeling ceiling,
and try whether I'm hungry enough
to get up, should not feel that strange
for I have lain on the clean white bed
of the sea and watched, so breathlessly high
above me, the glistening green glass waves
of the sky glide by.
A Sea Change
The late Roy Blackman worked for 21 years as a scientific civil servant in Marine Pollution Protection. Then he took an Open University degree, began writing poetry and was co-editor of the poetry magazine, Smiths Knoll.