Glide to the Slowdrown

Slip-sliding on seaweed-clad, sludge-encrusted sea wall that cracks and crumbles, dissolving in gnawing tides.

We giggle away the salt-sting bite of each greygreen wave; each bigger, wilder, unrulier than the last.

Each crashing splash pulls us deeper, wriggle-toed, salt-lipped, into swallowing sand.

We climb and teeter, squat precariously on rotten, collapsing timber groynes (Danger to Life!), dreaming a fantasy dominion.

A sudden glint of silver: treasure regurgitated from the deep! A discarded 50p shows Britannia, beside a tarnished lion, trident and olive branch held aloft.

Devalued, now she rues the waves, rusty trident dissolving, shield dull, crested helmet askew; blank eyes meet the deep and murky deeper, wider still and wider, as it creeps higher still and higher.

Grim-visaged, plucky, determined, shaken in a last stand, she channels some old Canute or other.

In vain.

This scept’rd isle, set in a silver sea.

This lapping, briny dumping ground.

Turns oil-cloaked, plastic-choked, effluent-effused assassin.

Eroding these calcified cliffs, stalking inland, bit by shark-toothed bite, inch by inch, year by year, held back—just, still—from the Promenade where ancient landladies in ’50s finery and fake pearls hold sway over crumbling ‘Holiday Villas’ with the odd fish & chip shop and cheery café Carry On Regardless; the bright lights of the gaming arcade pale against relentless sun; watery-eyed flaneurs in regimental tie and blazer stroll along the prom-prom-prom, whistling the cheery old song-song-songs.

Rub shoulders with tattooed, gammon-pink, slack-jawed day-trippers.

Relaxing in folding chairs outside.

Gaudily painted, fifty-thousand-pound beach huts (no running water or electricity, No Overnight Stays, By Order!), clinging doggedly to the annual fortnight escape (for them as can afford it).

Do not question: take up thy bucket and spade! Dig for victory!

Common sense over inevitability.

Perched on a weathered picnic bench, we raise our glasses of warm beer—souls pickling in salt and alcohol, dreaming of past victories and filtered futures for our distracted offspring, posting snapshots of ice-cream smeared, sunburned faces, grimaces of delight, howls of derision.

There’ll be tears before bedtime.

As we trudge to the waiting car.

Unaware that, out there, in the offing.

Poseidon’s stepdaughter is shaking her soiled sea-green locks, spewing open-mawed scorn at us.

As we slip-slide, gliding.

In waves, to the slowdrown.