stingray

When I was a boy I was often taken

to the aquarium on the promenade

by the Palace Pier, Brighton – a resort

and commuter town on England’s south east coast.

It was an hour’s train journey from London

on the Pullman Brighton Belle – with its curtains

and its table lamps – restored to pre-war pomp.

My favourite tank was devoted to sea fish

found in the English Channel – teeming still

from wartime’s cessation of fishing.

There were skate and flounder, dogfish and sole,

mullet and turbot, stingray and dab.

The Channel’s bluey grey waters pushed and pulled

the pebbly beach a bucket and spade away.

 

***

 

Our coastal waters have become the scoundrels’

last refuge, and the continent of Europe

has been cut off from us by a fog,

a miasma of xenophobia

and racism, hatred and envy,

lying and denial masquerading

as patriotism, truth and fact.

Being here at this moment is like

living among a hidden enemy,

aliens disguised as human beings,

a fifth column of racists and xenophobes,

latter-day Platonists obsessed with

abstractions and capital letters.

 

***

 

Piers – their width and length, their cast iron

stanchions and curlicues, the size and range

of their entertainment pavilions, the chance

of swaggering above the briny – were

a hallmark of the best resorts. Brighton

had two – Palace and West, the latter

my favourite as a boy with its small funfair,

green painted wrought iron slot machines,

and glass screens to keep the weather off.

Bankruptcy, neglect, storms, and arson,

over the last fifty years, have left four columns

and the skeletal remains of the tea room.

No one in authority appears

responsible for these vestiges –

which are like some permanent wreckage

of war, a parable of our civic life.