Aleister Crowley in Torquay, 1941

During the war fate finds him

in retreat at the seaside,

an odd holiday maker hiding from

you don't want to know.

Bored of whelks and the incessant tide,

full of asthma and faded magick.

Watch him imbibe brandy on the seafront,

heroin in the pale back rooms

of peeling boarding houses.

Watching, watching, but being watched too.

While Britain reels from conflict and thousands die,

he sighs on his quiet chosen shore,

seeing things unsurely hidden 

from more common eyes,

rationing his own decline as vision fails,

shuffling tacky dinner bills like tarot cards.

Reaching out one day, he is astounded

his offer to interrogate Rudolf Hess is rebuffed.

Back here, the meagre crescent of the beach

shrinks from his walking to and fro,

the Great Man drawing sigils in the sand

to protect this shore from invasion,

twilight scowling at the gods in the sea

who laugh at his sunset years.