The beach lies idle

The beach lies idle

Emptied of life

Glistening in the half-light,

Powdered bones

Beneath a glimmering moon

Lost in conversation

With the nearest star

Its cheeks flushed with the heat

Of Sol’s passion

Old pins and broken bottle tops

Lie half-buried

An arm from a pair of sunglasses

Sticking straight up, out of the sand

Waving

There is nothing to see here

A grubby white sock

The rotting remains

Of a railway sleeper

From the time before

When coal trains came down to the shore

The harbour now mothballed

Wagons emptied fossils and fuel

Into the soot lined holds

Of a steamer

Black smoke belching

From a salt-caked funnel

Engineers and stokers

Sweat stained muscles straining

Sinews fit to burst

With heat from the furnace

Enough to melt steel

The engine room, a little piece of hell

An inferno imagined by Dante

Coal Colliers were never graceful

As they wallowed

Through the swell

Off the coast of Durham

In the bygones.

Ribbons of surf stretch

From point to point

The sea whispers a soft caress

Professing its innocence

Carrying the memory

Of a siren

Waiting for a woebegone

To answer the call

A midnight swim

In the North Sea

Is not an adventure

Lightly entered into

Lovers cling together in the dunes

Pretending to be strangers

There is enough material

In the carpet bag

They rest their heads upon

To weave a story

If the memories are used well

It will bring pleasure

To recall their meaning

In a tentative fumble through

The loose leaves

Of an almanac

Disjointed

By the cut and paste

Of recollection.