Porthcawl

The sand stings here.

It is dry, cloud-soaked,

lifted feathery

and sucked inland on sharp

sea exhalations.

Fluffing debris from hair,

pinging cheers chime

with teddy-bear bells

as I part money in jest.

Waltzers dance behind.

Screams scowl down the rails

of rolling cages

as lights tanned by age

and sand

flash, flash and clash

with long shorts,

tank tops, sheltered shops

with spades and flip-flops.

Wind wraps around

the sound of falling tuppence,

and prying child-arms.

Arriving at Talland Bay

From the womb of the hill

I slip down the road,

blind at corners,

drowning without

stereoscopic eyes

or forceps.

Mother waits in the light,

all dripping

salty sweat

upon the rocks,

and sighing

as she crashes.

Exhaustion,

like the gown

of flat sand

crumpled and creased

by the power

of her movements;

pooled with still

tranquillity

after birth

– too still for

me and my beating heart

to know.

The Windmill Pub

Salt-bashed skin

walk into The Windmill pub,

at the end of the sun-day,

skin after skin

of rosy white and

clotted pores.

The sun-flesh sacks

sit in seats

sipping drinks.

From wallets blushed,

prices paid;

prices of beachy convenience.

Cream on dotted walls

cage them

at teak tables,

beneath breathing bronzes

and coppered hunger,

guilded thirst.

Mallendreath, then and now

Frying calves and tops of shoulders,

flailing sand, damming water,

building bolt holes from their brothers,

chasing sisters, splashing faces,

crushing castles into ruin,

eating sand stuck in the butter,

blown like needles in the wind

across the colour of the breaker,

from the waveward openness,

swimming, freezing, Frisbee throwing,

diving salt-ways catching salt

and seaweed in their throats and toes,

dragging fishing line from anglers,

red noses from the searing sea

– and sod the cream –

they're triple-jumping,

basking in the waves of glory

casting minds and reeling dreams

of Olympic wins,

as dad descends with torches of ice

to burn their tongues with cream,

and set alight their holiday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Walls” perishes

in the grey matter of walls

– ice creams coated

in neglect on the plaque,

and boards barricade

the holiday brigade

from the tuppence machine

of mindless escape.

Up the hill,

a JCB digs a platform

for an extension,

burying the laughter.

Other houses stand sentinel

over the child- and paint-less shell,

like family members

at a bedside.

A grey cloud of dust seems

ready to shroud.

Come on JCB,

have mercy.

Wyre Forest

Underfoot, stone age stones
the colour of bone
and splintered from the earth,
crack and scuttle

over dirt;
a dislocation of sounds
and senses overwhelm
the superfluous,

as the wrists of trees
wave in the wind;
dismembered fingers
run through the brittle hair

of the hedges and undergrowth,
feeling for bald patches
where radiation
has irradiated

the intimated seed;
but none is found, not here,
where ochre leaves fall and sit,
more like a hat than a bandage.