Grey tides wash their scrub along the shore,
Autumn sky cooly overcast, wind sweeping
Across the knotted shoreside, whistling past
Locked swings, empty playparks, lonely walkers.
Along the shore a decrepit amusement fair
Rattles and buzzes with laboured pleasure,
Offering dismal shelter with outdated arcades,
Children's rides, warm cola and blowaway
Candyfloss. And out pointing towards a murky
Rippling field of oilrigs and great ships at standby,
A small outreach of rocks in the ocean's
Vast jaw lies abandoned, the ruined
Swimming-pool a half-eaten offering: the slow
Consumation of destruction that comes,
Devouring all that we stand upon. The time
Is out of season. Man gather in tides,
Our epochs waves crashing over what
Has til then stood to order us and our days.
But moon drives us on? What earthly element
Hastens us til we collide like rising sea-foam?
In time the tide-breakers will fall, yielding
Like all divisions, as the waves wash in,
All that we have done obsolescent,
Leaving its scrub along the shore.
