Eastbourne

Quick change of venue today, people. Thanks to the Sunday edition of 'Keiths Ramblings' which took till Tuesday to get to my computer, I decided to share today a long, long ago account of a short visit I paid there one afternoon, off in the mists of time.

To really appreciate it, you will need to wind your imagination clock forward a couple of months from now, to an English April day, then back to a year when Spring decided to make herself apparent in no uncertain manner to the waiting crowds in Eastbourne.

Keith's visit, on a day in February, meant he had to use his imagination to supply pictures like the one I'm about to draw, and his images were so similar to mine, I couldn't resist jumping on his bandwagon. This is the first version of the poem. I have since tried to lick it into shape until it becomes an accepted poetic form and rhyme scheme, but the absence of both constrictions gives the sharpest picture, so here it is, painted with loving brushstrokes on a sunlit canvas.

Summer Season Prelude

Two o'clock in Eastbourne;
scaffolds on the pier
clank and echo
as the painters work.

The Season's near.

On this sunny April day
you can tell it's on its way.

Bare feet,
bald heads, pinkish in the sun:
bare skin -
fur hat?:
deckchair canvasses that start to flap
as three old ladies drag chairs
all along the Prom.

Two of them have settled
but the third one wants to move,
and sits in solitary state
gazing at the waves.

Ice creams:
pullovers:
trannies blaring, loud:
anything is possible
with a seaside crowd.

Two pairs of glasses perch
upon a single nose.
So many people sitting
in such silent, basking rows.

On reading this through, I think I should maybe point out that back in those innocent days, a 'trannie' was nothing more nor less than a Transistor Radio, and had no connotations of a deviant life style. Don't get too sunburned or windblown on your trip to the seaside, will you?!