Gulls cry bleak in the night with a face-full of briny spray.
Like an archaeology dig-site, they peck obsessively between
pebbles to unearth remains; a stagnant, cold chip – tonight’s tea.
Bully boy tactics for the ‘rats with wings’, help defuse their cravings.

A corroded, old skeleton stubbornly sits halfway out to sea.
Spectacle abound, the sight is cause for many a fond memory –
salty tears bleed from joints as it tries to remember its name,
a reminiscence now fading in the minds of the natives.

The slowly loudening wash permeates the pebbled carpet,
as Elvis judders and shakes – another penny hits the slot.
Lights frantically flicker to the sound of digital bleeps,
and the lucky few will hear copper dance on steel.

Deckchairs left high and dry, faded glory, mottled hues.
Late in the season to be stranded with nothing but a brackish breeze;
only the occasional warm caress of heavy buttocks for company,
as the wheel turns slow and thick with ubiquity over the coastline.

Antiquity is as much inside as out in this wondrous place,
labyrinthine lanes reveal a cultural crossroads of culinary delights.
A whirlwind of smells saturate the air as stone turns to wood;
the nostalgia walk to Arcadia begins, fervent and wild.

The inevitable dénouement arrives unwantedly early,
my driftwood heart floats a desire to remain; hidden, treasured.
Like old lovers we divert goodbyes to another time and place.
My aquatic motif gets the better of me; a home from home, she is,
until again I come eager to gently rest for eternity, gulls, Elvis, et al.