Tony Quarrington

Concrete and cranes now bestride the beach

Beneath Decimus Burton’s gracious Leas;

The shrieks of gulls and lapping waves,

Reassuring melodies of the seafront scene,

Are now drowned by the discordant notes 

Of drill and digger, hammer and pick.

Switchback and swimming pools,

Pier, putting green and amusement rides,

Once the joyous heart of local life,

All now just bittersweet memories,

Mourned on social media sites.

In their place, behind the boardwalk,

Another emblem of an earlier time,

A new, brighter world is taking shape 

On shell and shifting shingle ground.  

The red and white cars of the lift

Lie almost side by side, stalled 

And halfway up the dormant track,

Impatient for the flats to rise

And hasten their own resurrection. 

I loiter outside the waiting room,

Now popular pitstop on the promenade,

With a vegan sausage roll in my hand

And dust in my cappuccino.