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.
Tony Quarrington 