A Bird Loves The Sun On Her Back

Ext. Day: Whitley Bay in late afternoon

I
In scarlet electric storm fields that lead to the coast
where waves crash an ice tide of crack’d pearls,
iridescent driftwood and convulsive silver fish,
she sings to me a warning song.

II
Scything auld thermals above resort in decay
and the traffic of our talkshow youth below,
we hunt the ocean of perpetual summer in yesterday’s
chip-wrapped headlines snagged on the broken glass
of abandoned arcades.

III
Doric cliff columns absorb the red ink dusk
and will do so until the day does not come,
for Time is no mere chronological concept
of knots in a strand that must be undone.

IV
Far out in the swells where light falls in bands
and dusk is depicting a few early stars,
she flies in defiance of thundrous cars
curling the serpentine road.

V
Polarised by latitude, we regurgitate in gutters
the rhetoric of a doctrine sold in triplicat and hope,
while the view of Norway is gradually obscured
by the tacked up chipboard windows.

VI
And as I turn and leave this town along a promenade
and through a labyrinth underground,
I hear her song as a hymn to tomorrow
where our children fight ever on.