There is a reality in life

There is a reality in life

As in dreaming

Walking barefoot across the sand

The moon peeking cheekily

From behind an old Keep

Which appears on a headland

Bracketed by the tossed heads

Of waves breaking on black rocks

The force of the beating

Powdering the stone

Into sand, soft and yielding

The shoreline shifts

Into the distance

And the ground feels harder

Underfoot.

The grass is low-grown,

Thickly coarse.

Pushing through the undergrowth

Plunging across the wetlands

A fetid smell of drying kelp

Hangs in the air

Smoked Herring reminders

Upturned boats and charcoal burners.

The barb of Gorse

Pinpricks of blood

Tiny crimson baubles against white skin.

As stars watch on

Brighter than yesterday

Falling into the abyss

One by one.

Cornkrakes and peat bogs

Old English melodramas

Played out in swirling fog

As nightmares come calling

With the regularity

Of a winter squall across the bay

From Cornwall to Dorset

Looking for adventure

As much as the next man

With no guarantee

Of a full return

On any emotional investment.

Laughter strangely out of place

In a windbreak

As the high tide turns its back

On a sleepwalker

Stepping out lightly

And in the brightening

The last of the dreaming

Is poised,

To embark on a gentle run

For home.