Whitby church is falling down,
buried bones are raining free
on the kipper-smoking town
by the heavy rolling sea.
Will they find a damaged rib,
wooden stake through darkest heart?
Surely vampires are a fib –
nonsense tales right from the start.
If you wander on the beach
when day trippers have all gone
normal rules slip out of reach,
like the sun that almost shone.
Beware the slavering dog
leaping on to harbour wall,
hard to be sure in sea fog
now smothering almost all.
We can’t stop the cliff sliding;
gales through the Abbey remains.
Is it death we hear riding,
or whistle of toy steam trains?
A row of houses was lost
- too much water underground;
and often the storms release
a sudden, unearthly sound.
Strange folk on the steps to Whitby Abbey and church
I wrote myself out of the dark
using buoyant words from my youth,
then simple sound of a dog bark
halting my lonely search for truth.
Sunshine in early October,
waiting for the brittle to fall;
time before Christmas spent sober;
undressing trees suddenly tall.
Your love remains well out of reach
- all the barriers we cannot see;
breakwaters on the tidal beach
try to stop the land breaking free.
It seemed much easier back then
to surf the vulgar flow of words;
kids poked fun at the smelly men
sleeping streets of the shitting birds.
Now our own teeth are falling out
and pages of the book are blurred;
inside, the silent scream and shout
as certain death is just deferred.
I walked myself out of the dark
- winter morning at last got light,
kept going beyond the prim park
- tousled wilderness just felt right.
York, click image to grow
