Morecambe and Wiser #poetry

A palate of clouds and light over the bay
but I’m glad I took you anyway
I hadn’t been for such a long time
and the way the sun played on the sands: sublime
the stone jetty with its tongue-twisters,
the unpretentious tea shop where we sheltered
then when we came out, how the grey clouds parted
to reveal the hills!
Glory days! And the Circus was in town,
right on the spot where I’d played in the pool
as a child. Now, childhood and the pool long gone
outside the tent, the families formed a queue
you asked, ‘Why don’t we go?’ and I could find
no reasonable answer.
Inside the Big Top, I’m a child again
watching the artists flying the trapeze
slicing the air with acrobatic ease,
and I’d like to do the same with words:
this is how it feels to be free
with no risk of breaking my neck, except
perhaps, metaphorically.
Next, we found the Eric Morecambe statue
where we struck a pose:
there’s something about the gesture and the day
which implores such gay abandon from us
and I sent you a postcard about all of this
but it hasn’t reached you yet
so just in case you never get it
you can have these words instead:
I am older and I’m wiser now,
the former, by one day
the latter, it seems, immeasurably
through simple lessons gifted to me by
my children.

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A poem about a day trip to Morecambe

A seaside town in Lancashire, and birthplace of Eric Morecambe (one half of the comedy duo, Morecambe and Wise), Morecambe has perhaps seen better days. But I couldn’t have wished for a day much better than this!

I will be linking up to dVerse, where tonight is Open Link Night Live: from 3pm ET, you can link up any poem, and for the first hour you can join us live to read your poem and listen to others. Hope to see you there…