It is desolate

It is desolate

With a view worth seeing

It filled a page in the guidebook

The rugged North East coast

Shipbuilding is long dead

The market has moved on

Coal is left underground

Where it can cause no harm.

Taken in isolation,

All of the separate pieces

Looked at individually

To assess their intrinsic value

Were full of interest,

That much was true.

The vast emptiness of the sea

The sweep of the coast

The headland, cloaked in a heat haze.

It could be described as romantic

A French Lieutenant's Woman

Standing on the pier

Gazing out to sea, longingly.

A throwback to Dickens and Copperfield

The ruddy red face of a Peggotty

Old English loyalty,

A Dotheboys Hall education,

The marshes at Romney.

Anywhere in England

Before the turn of the last Century.

An early morning mizzle

Always invokes a feeling of otherliness,

Wet before breakfast

Desolate in decline

The withering of old age.

Abruptly I come upon the lonely

Wrapped in a tartan rug.

Sitting silently all morning

On an old wooden bench

Gazing out to sea

Dreaming of invasion

Waiting for the dying.

Talking is an ordeal

Every word is torn out with pliers

As bloodied as broken teeth

Cancer has taken hold

If truth be told.

He was both dead and alive

With memories of the before time

Before he felt so alone and desolate

Before the world died

When there was a sniff of hope for the future.

Before the crash swept all before it

Before it was desolate

Before decline was the answer to any request for rebirth.

Death is desolate,

In isolation it is intolerable.