SEASIDE

Midnight

On the slow-wind beach

And the hungry sea

Licks black sand.

Moonlight

And me,

Throwing stones,

The way people do

On lonely beaches,

A stone’s throw

Away from the town;

Lonely people,

Making sinking splashes

As the long tongue of sea

Licks grey sand.

A bloody ribbon of sky,

Distant

In tattered blackness;

And me

On the cold-wind beach

At first light.

(1975)

Writers need to ‘find their own voice’ and this is one of the first poems in which I felt I’d shaken off, if only temporarily, the powerful influences that had inspired me to write in the first place.

The beach in question was somewhere in Wales; possibly Rhyl.

The photograph is a recent one and was taken overlooking the beach at New Brighton, a few miles north of Liverpool. We’d hopped on a train to go and see the sunset there and spotted the lone figure you see in the picture.