It lies in limbo a beautiful wreckage glistening chrome the wind from the sea stings salty tears for the deaths of youths and one man whose name is not spoken but whispered along the cobbles of the shore nature at its most unnatural tells all and nothing a secret like that of Midas but the touch is silver not gold tainted heavily with guilt the tale sung by the breeze but not the villagers their tell-tale hearts thumping as they pass by for they hear those voices that will not be drowned
A poem I wrote when I was about 16 after visiting Maggi Hambling's Shell sculpture near Aldeburgh. I had managed to arrange it to resemble a shell on the page I wrote it on but can't quite replicate that here.