(no subject)

[i_kender]

To Brighton I will go

where the mermaids comb my hair

and the swallows murmur in circles in the air

as seagulls shriek and steal chips and attack pensioners

perishing rubbish vulture parasites loud morning botherers – bastards!

 

To Brighton I will go, ho ho

to sink and drink and dance alone on the

shingled beach with shipwrecked brain

in crowded halls, in long parades,

on whistling blistering blustery shores

up ravaged council-flatted slopes

up hill, down lane, up hill again

in circles circling The Steine

 

Old pleasure palaces a-glow

and rotten piers that sink in seaweed-swallowing loam

arson-struck.

 

To Brighton I will go, hoorah

to Brighton I will go

with the poets and the anarchists and vegetarian calamatists

rock stars and drag queens and Muscle Marys

and Tattoed Henry and Prince Alberts

and Vera Lynn and Boogaloo Stu

who is doing a very naughty poo

 

To Quaker’s Lane and Churchill Square and Terminus Place

The King and Queen full of ESOLers

The Gloucester and the Goths

and all-night breakfasts

and Revenge ho hum

The Harlequin or whatever it’s calling itself now

Kings Street, Queen Street, Who-The-Hell-Is-He Street.

 

I’ll throw up in a B&B (or maybe not)

and leave glitter in my wake

and stare at people lovingly

and make terrible mistakes

 

But they will love me back in turn

and whirl me into their Brighton worlds

and stiltwalkers and paragliders

and nudists and firebreathers

and vegan Grauniad readers

and fireworks and Thai Ladyboys

and circuses and festivals and floating giant film screens

and naked men running through a hotel at 4am

liquor-lapped student bodies double over

endlessly renewed

 

Perennial pier in gaudy glass bauble lit

it’s crap but familiar

Bodies in and bodies out

Green donut – yes, that’s odd

and the kissing couple kissogram

whiff of weed

beads

young people and kids and students and chivvy teens

and those students again

every year they’re younger

but they keep returning

perennials

bianuuals

unstoppables

 

lapping at the city

eroding

and renewing

like the surge of sea laps

like the foam

smugglers and pirates and conference goers

and home

 

There’s the sun over the sea,

the city spread silver and rain-wet

the wind hees

the pebbles and scattered people and litter and seagulls

and the swallows

in circles

turning turning turning

like the years.

 (c) 23.11.07 Mehran Baluch - All rights reserved by the author.