When I cycle without holding the handlebars on my bike,
I wonder if I look arrogant,
Like a bit of a *****,
But
In winter I don't care
because as I let go
and straighten my back and lift my arms and open my mouth and breathe in the sea
I feel like a butterfly or a comorant or a bumble bee lifting and gliding and riding winter up and up and up,
I feel like a tiny yellow light has been lit like a candle at the base of my spine and the soft warmth from it is thawing my body from my ribs to fingers.

Winter wants to hurt me,
At least it feels that way,
Put a bag over my head and expect me to smile,
My scarf is making my neck sweaty and itchy and I'm sick of it,
The ice is creeping deep and deeper into my head,
Whispering words I thought I'd buried.

In books set against snowy backdrops with whisky in pubs and cable knit jumpers and hands to mouths,
Winter is warm and bubbling with atmosphere,
And though I've seen glimpses and sipped on spicy *** and given myself red wine teeth and sore fingers from sitting outside and laughed until my belly ached,
Today it just feels cold
Colder than cold,
Cold and hollow,

Unless I'm riding my bike with no handlebars and looking at the sea.

I.

Have you seen faded flowers in the night?
Where an unknown heart got burnt at moonlight.

Would they wrap pale sunlight?
Allowing petals to sneak into a treasure box.
 
She lay in her chamber in the sea mountain side..
Fire flame burns the window green...
Wooden floor danced on crystal glasses..
 
The wind rushes out of the cloud by night,
Stabbing and poking her, Madam Huang
 
II.
Of those who were wiser than us---
Of many far talents than us---
 
Pray, neither for the angels in Heaven above
Nor the devil down under the tunnel
 
For the moon sunk in late November
Without interpreting her wonders, she left the sea bank,
Tears can ever dissolve her stories within the stories
 
III.
Of the sorrowful Madam Huang
When the stars have not risen,
They gather in the chamber by the sea.
 
A falling star shining in the far and burst,
a bolide flames transmitted Requiem finale.
 
Of the sorrowful Madam Huang
May the sky award true colours of the dying night.

IV.
Silent prayers are kneeling there, they seemed to share the shame
Prior to breathing out the crispy air of Late November.
She asked him once Her name.

Of the sorrowful Madam Huang
from the chamber in the sea mountain.

I can hear the noise of the world, always
In my ears, like the sea never leaves the shell,
No matter how far travelled by a beachcomber
Who takes their souvenir home.
No matter how far I roam, the world follows up
It’s chaotic tone, voices shouting, ringing phones,
Cars with car horns rushing to be late
Somewhere they really don’t want to go.
Fools, vagabonds, gypsies, businessmen, wives
Police and thieves, cannot escape the gravitational
Drag of the world on their destiny.
I can hear the swish of their existence in my sleep
It never leaves me, like the restless tide it creeps.

An ocean away in Colwyn bay,
a glamorous stranger is looking my way
tilting her head and lifting her shades,
her furrowing features are meeting my gaze

Shamelessly eyed from a platform away
As if she had something important to say
Then turning around with a curious frown,
she starts back towards her familiar town

To elegant houses of ashlar and brick
A terrace of Gothic adornments and frills
Victorian angles and white window sills,
becoming the specks which are dotting the hills

A town held aloft by a battered plateau
and anchored to ocean by columns of stone
A picturesque coastline, a spring getaway
The home of a stranger, her postcard landscape

The rattle of metal and the wheels over rails
The men wearing colours are starting to wave
My thoughts turning back to that taciturn dame
The din of the train means I'm pulling away

“I was happy just then,” thought the girl by the sea
“For a moment I did not recall -
That there is the ache of existence in me,
When the voice in my head went so small.”

“Just a minute ago, when the raindrops began,
The weight on my heart swam away.
The voices and figures, they bustled and ran,
So the showering silence could stay”

“With the first bursts of thundering, thoughtless relent,
The fever of life was relieved.
As were the teardrops, the tremors, the torment.
A flawed absolution achieved”

We like to go to the cliff on Fridays
and sit three abreast
Staring out in to the abyss of sea and night and life
Having our thoughts and ideas and plans affirmed by each other
- for each other.
Fuelled by rolled up cigarettes and hope.

We know we are different
Special.
We are best friends.

We don't go to the cliff anymore
Times have changed and we have grown up and we are not as sure that we are as different or as special as we were then.
Maybe we have lost hope
We haven't lost the cigarettes yet.

But we are still best friends, the same but different
Older yet still young in our concepts of each other. Our souls as sisters, still sitting next to each other.

Three abreast. Three best.

Weary eyed shop workers curse the sight of dawn,
A drunken Hen stumbles and her tutu gets torn,
The smell of burning chip fat invades my nose,
‘Chips for breakfast?!’ I cry, chewing marshmallows,
I venture towards the tower feeling free as a bird,
When SPLAT on my shoe lands a seagull ****.
Rough with the smooth - that’s what this town’s all about,
I think as a man pulls his Jokebooks out,
‘It’s for charity!’ he lies. ‘I live here mate..’
‘Oh right, soz love, fancy a date?’’
I ignore the geezer and gaze out to the sea,
Wondering where the Lochness Monster might be..
Soaking up the sights as 2 drunks start to fight,
‘OI’ I shout, as a kid sets a bin alight.
Skaters jump like kangaroos on the bandstand,
As health freaks tut, running rapid on the sand.
Children charge like apes in supersensory mazes,
While parents eye arcades with terror on their faces,
Suddenly crisp packets dance in the air,
As the wind picks up and whips at my hair.
‘It’s hometime for me!’ A hailstone hits my eyeball,
And the blue sky runs behind some grey clouds of storm,
There’s not many places with 4 seasons in a day!
So don’t let the weather throw you into disarray.
‘Blackpool’ I say, ‘a town of stark contrast…’
As a horse driven carriage then a rat stroll past.
A town to make memories no matter how worn,
That time never erases as new ones get born.

Back in Bispham, where the prom’s a bit safer,
The oldies don’t buy 3 Hammers, just pies and papers,
I step off the number 11 bus and shout ‘Thanks!’
The bus driver grunts, takes his hand out his pants,
Then speeds down our beautiful, glistening prom,
Full of lights that probably shouldn’t still be on.