Skinny-dipping, White’s Cove.

Skinny-dipping, White’s Cove.

For Richard Boyd-Barrett

We had plenty of fags, 

cans, matches,

The stereo was working.

We lit nightlights 

and set them in the sand 

between shells 

and fossil-patterned stones.

Between us

We got a joint together,

Passed it round.

We lit sparklers,

Set off fireworks,

The night had many colours.

The breeze was alive.

We had leaves in our hair 

And stuck to our clothes 

from the forest.

Huge birds squalled inside sea mist.

We stripped off, first one,

Then the rest 

Ran whooping and hooting and howling

Into the bay.

I was worried about the Guards

Sneaking up on us,

But fuck the Guards. Fuck them.

Braced in the water, ghosts

Fled my blood and swam away,

I forgot the tug of time and doom,

I forgot.

Ashore we couldn’t find

Where we had flung our underwear

So we left it there among the odds and ends,

Then up the concrete steps,

Iron echoes on the  railway bridge,

The slow ascent to heavy-lidded dawn.

What old man puffing after

A cocker spaniel,

What early morning jogger

Found our leavings lying in that cove?

Fragments abandoned,

Relics of a lost culture.

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From my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring