AT THE END OF THE PIER
Past Songs of Yesteryear, Mystic Morgana,
and other booths – purveying Flags of the World,
Country & Western Memorabilia,
Decorous South Sea Shells, Home Made Welsh Fudge;
past the sustainable hardwood benches
with withered in memoriam bouquets;
over the planking with its measured gaps
through which to view, like a bioscope,
the incoming tide shimmy then shake
the fronds of bronze weeds among the rocks,
slap, strike the elegant, cast iron stanchions;
next to where even the line fishermen
are starting to stow their gear, as an east wind
begins to blow, is the Mariner’s Lounge
with its faux fishing nets, its mounted
plastic cod, its framed chart of the North Wales coast.
Those Tinsel and Turkey pensioners
adventurous enough to leave their hotels –
crescented along the town’s North Shore –
are sipping, with the odd Walkers’ crisp,
a Rombout’s coffee, a Gallo chardonnay,
a Carling, a Guinness, and watching
Hollywood tv repeats in HD
as sudden rain squalls against the glass.
Oh, to be transported warmly, safely,
to Beverly Hills – via Mulholland Drive
and Santa Monica Boulevard –
where, to portentous chords, perfect mysteries
are perfectly solved by pensionable folk!
John Huddart
July 5, 2016Thanks for taking me back to Santa Monica! And for speaking up for pensioners who do solve mysteries in their poems! The opening section is powerful, and tasty as Larkin!