This Stretch of Beach

Patrick Arrowing

The wind
wrangled
its way toward midnight deriving a musicality from the loose sail ropes
of boats otherwise nursing a stillness out of the dark.

Walking this stretch
of the beach
with but a few
people passing, the hotels, cinema and shops
on the far side of the road
Brighton felt as if it had
a thing more important to impart
other than the grooves of its hip clubs.

The burnt out pier ghosted the sea,
a symbol of much of what we have
rejected
yet cannot wholeheartedly
loosen our grip on.

Tourists laughed, people ate
chips to fend off the cold
and the stars watched with a sense of
the curious, wondering what to write home.

PATRICK ARROWING BOX 2437 COVENTRY CV6 2YE