southend

As it all rushes by

/ Notes from the Narrow Lanes / Leave a comment

Sitting on the concrete promenade

At Thorpe Bay

The sun setting to my right

Casting a glow over the seafront buildings

And the large new ferris wheel

In the distance

The weather is ok

A rarity

Spring seems shy after a brutal winter

This weird place I’ve called home

For the last year

Is fast coming to an end

Everything changes all the time

But with me

Maybe it’s a little too constant

I’m alone

As I usually am out here 

In this place

But I look down along the beach

And see an old paddling boat

Filled with sand and shells

The same one my daughter played in

Two weeks before in this spot

And I think if how

I’ll probably never bring her out here again

Why am I nostalgic?

I don’t know

It’s funny how us humans can make anything home

When I first came here I sort of hated this place

It was the middle of summer

Lobster people crawled out of the woodwork

Traffic mess

The constant smell of ice cream and fish and chips

Screams from the amusement park rides

Seemed to carry for miles

An image sticks in my head

A few hundred yards from where I sit now

The height of summer

A rugged looking old man stood on the concrete promenade

And played some equally rugged notes

From a saxophone

While a woman sat on the edge

Legs wide open

Revealing whatever you wanted to see

And swayed, beer in hand, to the music

In the background an old yacht had fallen on its side

And lay prone in the water

That’s Southend for you

There’s charm, but you have to be creative about it

There was always this sense 

Right from the beginning

That’s I’m not at home in this town

Or city

Whatever

And I never was

But familiarity has its charm

Certainly to me

But that’s my problem

I hate goodbyes

And here I am

Another goodbye to another place

This one a solitary journey

That precious few saw precious little of

I look down the seafront

I think I can almost make out the shape

Of the Royal Hotel

I can afford to take a few minutes more here

No one’s waiting for me

And here I am

Taking it slow

As it all rushes by

Sunday at the Royal

/ Notes from the Narrow Lanes / Leave a comment

I was feeling melancholic

But it was Sunday afternoon

And Sundays seemed to bring about the most emotion

Especially lately

Southend in summer 

And everything was out

Everywhere

Smells of fish, chips, and ice cream

Continual screams drifted up 

From the amusement park rides

Some Sundays I made my way 

To the Royal Hotel bar

A pint helped to dilute the gloom 

Into something I could trust more

Sometimes the one pint turned into two

Making Sunday more acceptable

Like every Sunday afternoon 

A singer sat in the corner 

And played to the handful of people

I sat by the window

And looked out at the wide gaping mouth of the Thames

Seagulls drifted overhead

My thoughts drifted back to the last two days

And this strange maze we walk through

That we call life

All these bodies walking past 

Showing all this skin

Much of it like leather

The singer played out a rendition of

Losing my Religion

As drugged up fellow amused himself across the street

And the roller coaster screams continued to waft up

All these choices

All these roads

All these possible outcomes

Sometimes all we can do

Is sit by a window with a pint

And look back

And wonder how differently it might have looked

Or what on earth is next

As we cast the dice

And play the hand in front of us

While infinite paths lie ahead

And the world remains indifferent

As the big ferris wheel turns 

Like the sun that keeps coming around

As the ship sails by 

Only to return

As the tide recedes slowly 

Only to be back tomorrow

As the seagulls circle

It was after 6pm

Yazoo’s Only You was being bastardised

I needed a second pint