Salt Coast

Salt coast, foul wind

Old ghosts, scrap tin

Leaves, rain

Leaves, rain

Salt coast, foul wind

Old ghosts, scrap tin

Leaves, rain

Leaves, rain

All dressed up with nowhere to go

I love your sleeve-pulling nervousness

I love the way you crumble into chalk at your edges

I love the way you fade into a sky that is as endless

As your willingness to try

Keep going and it will get better

I love the way you push to get clear

I love the way you dance to get strong

Ancient

Slick clay, rock-formed, wet sand, moss-borne

What came before

And what will come after

Beneath the orderly queues, the bad moods, the nice views

The have-nots and have-twos, the night shifts in flat shoes

The discarded masks, the empty tubes

The colds, the flus, the reds, the blues, the Buy-to-let, the Play-to-lose.

The White Ace, the Grey Goose, the Michelin-starred, the fast food

The straight lies, the strange truth

I can hear the deep rasp of your laughter, joyful

Beneath the stifled resentments

And micro-aggressions

All part of the fabric

The tension woven so tight it defies its dimension

The see-but-don't-feel

The know-but-don't-mention

There you are; hedonistic, self-destructive, insecure

Trying to get away from the mistakes you've made before

Salt coast, foul wind

Old ghosts, scrap tin

Leaves, rain

Leaves, rain

Salt coast, foul wind

Old ghosts, scrap tin

Leaves, rain

Leaves, rain

Veering into change

I appreciate your efforts

Acknowledging your privilege

But prone to back-stepping

Sure, it's not by our past that our future will be measured

It's by the very moment that we're slumping in, dishevelled

Six hours in to some TV show that tastes like the feeling of pizza

I know what you reach for

All dressed up with nowhere to go

Benched, waiting for a path to open up

Waiting for a thing that might make you old enough

To get into the pub

Where people drink to lost youth

I see you, scraping the gravel in your Air Max

So beautiful, so chaotic, so grounded

Home

Concrete and loam

Brick-dust and loans

Wood-floors

Screen-doors

And a place of your own

Pay it off the rest of your life, but who's asking?

Restless, the damp night approaching

Distilling the heat

Too long on your feet

Now you want to be free

From the strain of what's done in your name

Every single inch of you is somebody's claim

The familiar refrain

Of their glory and your shame

You just want to keep moving, the energy contained

Is spilling out and making trouble for you

Nothing is the same

You got out from underneath the weight of suffer and obey

The tyranny and hate of Britannia rules the waves

And now you swing your hips as you go strutting down the lane

I love you when I see you this plain

Your salt coast, your foul wind

Your old ghosts, your scrap tin

The browning of your leaves

And the greening of your rain

Salt coast, foul wind

Old ghosts, scrap tin

Leaves, rain

Leaves, rain

Salt coast, foul wind

Old ghosts, scrap tin

Leaves, rain

Leaves, rain