1.
I’m heading to the sea
in a slot not big enough to fit a holiday
so I’ll day
trip

I think I’m packed:
a mind still rattled by life and lockdowns?
check
a palpable desire for vistas unknown?
check
a rucksack of memories, of sand, of wafer cones,
of wasps, of crystalline, sweet wrapper lights on mad, unsafe beach rides, on windbreaks, on digging, on seaweed and brown British waves?
check

Let’s start this engine, then

2.
Should’ve gone before we left
the irony’s not lost on me
even though I’m now the boss of me
I’ve still had to stop in local circles
cos someone needs a ***

I’ll blame the coffee

3.
Frightening fast the local roads fade
the five and ten mile loops of life
are gone
and the roots we commute and commune on
rest bone rigid, obscured

Passing Crowland
impossibly flat plains
thoughts turn to darkness
and misunderstood witches lost here
until the smirk of Cowbit assuages

Only the Welland, alongside
still talks of home
til even she changes
speaks in wider verbs
tidal verbs of ebb and flow
showing thick mud beneath

These long, straight roads are deceptive
leaving meanders to river and mind
while hiding accidents in plain sight

4.
The road sentence ended
and after chewing a space to park
shoes changed to something wholly uncool
but fitting me well
first steps on the unsure grammar of sand
reminding that syntax here takes much more effort

a dune cleft gives a known view
I’ve never seen before
and then I’m through

sky and horizon blast me

for frozen moments I’m lost,
these common seas I shrug off in my head
smirk at
as nothing against turquoise
or rock raged waves
still bring tears
against my smile

I listen at the language in the shallows,
the rush and hustle,
and feel a glimmer of foreignness as I can’t make out the message
but I get the gist

5.
To honour holidays of old
I sat a spell in Wolla Bank car park
though inauthentically the rain didn’t fall

I was forced to imagine the windscreen steamed
and had no fish paste on white
as I’d paid full price to eat at a cafe
unheard of back in the day

I did read the car park info sign
about the clay pits around
where historical sea defences were mined
and that did the job of taking my mind back

and the closing thought of petrified trees
beneath the waves til very low tide
did its best to haunt

6.
Heading home
wistful I suppose,
though I’m not sure where I got all the wist

the sea is a keeper of memories
a chewer and cogitator
so when they return to the shore
and are spoken again
what you thought you knew back then
may have changed
deepened, softened
and hopefully your youthful idiocy
is allowed to be forgotten

if you came for the ride
thanks, as ever, for joining me x

Tell me you see ice cream,
cold British beaches, amber filtered
hanging bright buckets and spades
and pebbles and sand
tight lanes through time lost green fields
with only hedges passing judgement
tell me you see *****
(the good kind)
and flabby dad *** abs
that remember the potency of other times
tell me you see the sea
tell me you see me there

I arose from a chamber off the ivory coast,
passed the rainforest before taking a float

A dip in the island valley,
I trod to the meadow cote

Listened to the humming birds,
singing a halo note

Said the gull to the Helter Skelter:
‘Did you know, when the oak was felled
You would, one day, delight a girl
With raven eyes, who’d lost her way
And wound up starting fires?’

The gull went on:
‘Did you know, when the oak was cut
This wayward girl would grab your mat
To climb the stairs of our own prayers
To outshine all the spires?
And, did you know, when boards were made
A dusty offering to the lathe
You would, one day, tease out the sap,
The wildwood sap within her bones
Confounding all the liars?

So, you should know, when planks were bent
Twisted, slotted, primed and painted,
That this lost girl would one day jump
Up higher than high flyers.'

i’ll remember the sound of the
ocean gently lapping the shore, and
the sound of birds chirping - which birds
i can’t be sure -
i’ll remember my feet blistering, and the
taste of red wine
i’ll remember the blue 10pm sky
and two magpies giving a
sign.

most of all i’ll remember the restless
joy that i feel, my yearning that reels,
my eagerness to escape and
my emotions, slowly taking
shape.