A seaside girl
I met her
Down on the Prom
It was out of season

Her hair was the colour
Of miles of sand
That lay like a blanket
Along the coast

Behind us the arcades
Pumped out their noise
As she looked in my eyes
I heard her beauty

A woman now
By no means a girl
I couldn't but help
Picture her - nineteen

Then as if
She'd read my mind
She told me of summers
When the crowds had come

Behind us the Sky Tower
Stood like a parent
Proudly watching her children
Paddle in the surf

She pointed to where
The Pavilion had stood
In the distance wind turbines
Stood strangely still

I used to watch
Your children play
Down on the sands
Such beautiful kids

I smiled and nodded
Her eyes were blue
Like the distant mountains
Out to the west

And then a sadness
Crossed her face
On the horizons the turbines
Began to turn

I long for my youth
I wore a bikini
I took her hands
The rain began to cry

Then as quick
She disappeared
Into the air
That now seemed colder

Who she was
I still can't tell
My mind has named her
Sunny Rhyl

I have a friend in north Wales
She's a scouser but lives in Rhyl
Her job is taking care of young adults
Who have learning dificulties
They live in hostels where they are overseen
By my friend and her colleagues
So, another friend of our's rang her at work
And asked if she was busy
She said that she wasn't as they were all out
So and so had gone shopping with so and so
Someone else had gone here
Another had gone there
And one had gone to the harpoonist
As usual, for lessons
From a harpoonist?
Yeah, you know
Someone who plays harp

                                    By Phil Roberts

Oh Christmas comes but once a year
Waistlines swell with good food and beer
Mince pies, chocolates, nibbles and nuts
Watch vintage TV, with no 'ifs' and no 'buts'

Wrapping paper deal, 2  rolls for a pound
Sneaky wrapping later, shhh, don't make a sound
Christmas tree needed you know what to do
Get a last minute deal down at Rhyl B & Q

Got the presents sorted, a job that so hard
That sinking feeling from a last minute card
A phone call and text is never too much
A welcome long chat just to keep in touch

Christmas day approaching are all the jobs done?
Eat drink and be merry is the way it should run
But often a snooze can be the best part
That can end with a grunt, a snore or a ****.

Turkey all gone but there are sandwiches still
Three helpings of trifle can make you quite ill
Then cheese and fine biscuits with coffee and cake
Might slow you right down on the After Eights

So off to the sofa  where you sit if you dare
Waistbands all loosened on the reclining chair
A tea or a beer shows who's still in the race
While a quick 40 winks puts a smile on your face

Well there it was done and soon off to bed
You sleep like a log having been so well fed
In the night you are gasping you must have a drink
You make it to the bathroom and drink from the sink

The next day is hellish, there are wrappers gallore
With crisps, cheese and crackers ground into the floor
Red wine in glasses fermenting and mulled
You turn and retreat with your senses quite dulled

So no breakfast needed just a whole lot of quiet
After indulging on what was a plain liquid diet
A quick clean around is a job for us males
As your partner heads out for the Boxing day sales!

Please don’t move to Blackpool
You’ll only waste your time
These are things that I’ve found
To make you change your mind

I spent a year one day in Morecambe
A dreary night in Rhyl
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
And I believe that still

A bunker out in Baghdad
A tent at Calais port
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
The Fylde coasts ugly wart

A cruise ship full of Covid
A plane about to crash
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
It’s ugly & it’s brash.

A cell in Bangkok’s Hilton
Chernobyl’s poisoned land
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
This place I cannot stand

Furthermore, began St Anne by the Sea,
And a spotty Doctor Newcastle got down on one knee.
I hear the old folk *******.
I hear ducks up the chimney.
I'm eating hymn books and confetti;
Sweating mud now.

The very nearly possible was there;
Lovely laughing Uncle April was there;
The plump thigh from your thrilling island was there also;
The Balsam Boy,
The basil canary,
The mustard customer from Rhyl

We dated a wasting blue on the old shopping hill.
You had been with the Superintendent of cream
In the back rooms of Matthew August Ltd.
In private I was brown because of my tinnitus.
My child was only half written
According to those forty enormous Liverpools,
According to those three vaginal cannonballs.

Horace Horace and his delicious old porridge was the inability setting.
Thought clumsiness was in fashion back then.
Upstairs could hear the downstairs *******.

Now mock Tudor glands have all the critical opportunity
And hands pull on my circular feet.
Glum songbirds mingle in the dissapointment larder
Of the Transport Office between Mr Kane and his ***** milk.
The tutted Beryl train accounts for neither the sad 13,
Nor the burgundy drums of Cologne.

The dark doodad brigade broke the Parisian child pipes,
So now the garnet ***** are a very dusty parcel indeed.
And Sir Billick’s magnificent bottom of forty years has beckoned.

What delicious and capable spondees!
What fruits we acquired for Captain Mary!
We remember nothing therefore.

Now we must wash our spectacles
And take sympathetic musical suggestion for our tugged Nightingale methods.