This one is in this format, because if I put it in the line by line way, it would be huge. I did this as an homage to the beach, within walking distance of where I lived, all of my life. Because it's a British Beach, there may be ref's you won't get? If this is so then feel free to ask. Resp,Bri.

My Beach

The sound of the water gaining and receding, the beach, my beach, beckoning it seems. Stand at the shoreside watching my Sea, feeling the memories flooding.

I'm an older man now, a shivering wreck, but like a boy once again, shoes and socks round my neck, feeling again the incoming tide, trying to ignore the pain in my left side.
Doing "the twist", feet sinking in sand, every grain, every stone, a caress as I stand, as the cold water wave breaks over my legs, like the last line of a poetic strand.

It's been quite a few years since I last stood here, the beach was mine, so private and dear. Except in the summer, when the tourists descended, they'd stay and they'd play till the season ended. Even after that, a desperate few would linger, trying to hold on to sunshine's last glimmer.

Eating their chips, their hot dogs and flosses, their wins at the arcades, but mostly their losses, then the fairground winds down, to only a whisper, of the ghost-train boarded up, and ready for winter. Till finally there’s only one punter left to witness, the cessation of action, the closing of the rides, readying itself for the long lonely nights.

Then finally the beach, belongs to the locals once more. Nothing but beach-combers on those deserted shores, Desolate, wind-swept, misty and fogged, they walk on the promenade, or chase their dogs.

Sandcastles collapsed, in the sand where they were made, carelessly left behind, with the buckets and spades, by the holidaying kids, as their parents got them dressed, in a hurry to leave for their cries made them stressed.
Along towards Roker, to the "Cat n Dogs steps,” a precarious stairway, like a ladder they stretch, all the way from the "prom" and to the top, nestled tight between, were the rocky outcrops.

Back down towards the Seaburn Hotel, the restaurant food on the wind could be smelled, where a holidaying L.S.Lowry, often could be found, doodling on napkins as people gathered around, seeing beer-mat sketches, worth thousands of pounds.

The sewage pipe stretches out, made of concrete and metal, a diving board for the adventurous to show off their mettle. Let the swimmer beware, when swimming all way round, because its not just seaweed, near this pipe that is found.

Further along there's the Lost Childrens Station, where thousands of children over the years have been taken, after wandering lost, from their unknowing parents. But after a while their wayward stroll becomes apparent, till eventually rescued and reunited with each other, Fathers looking cross, but only love, from the Mother.

If the beach has a memory, would it remember me, does it recall what great friends we used to be? Singing and laughing and having fun together, swimming and climbing, whatever the weather.

Off Whitburn beach there are myriads of boats, cobles, motorboats, and fishing-boats, or just floats. Bobbing about on the crest of a wave, old ones scuttled to a watery grave. Some tied up to buoys, or pulled up to shore, a few even derelict and they'll sail no more.

I think of the Coastline of the Northeast very often, it left its tide-mark on me and will never be forgotten, like my footprints left in the sand at low tide, this greenery that surrounds me, I can't abide. This is the longest I've been apart from my beach, wherever I was, it seemed always in reach. I miss it, I long for it, in every possible way, I make a promise to myself, that I'll be back some day. Walking on my own two doddering feet, or scattered as ash, in the wind blowing east, either way, I'll be back, home.