Sitting on the concrete promenade

At Thorpe Bay

The sun setting to my right

Casting a glow over the seafront buildings

And the large new ferris wheel

In the distance

The weather is ok

A rarity

Spring seems shy after a brutal winter

This weird place I’ve called home

For the last year

Is fast coming to an end

Everything changes all the time

But with me

Maybe it’s a little too constant

I’m alone

As I usually am out here 

In this place

But I look down along the beach

And see an old paddling boat

Filled with sand and shells

The same one my daughter played in

Two weeks before in this spot

And I think if how

I’ll probably never bring her out here again

Why am I nostalgic?

I don’t know

It’s funny how us humans can make anything home

When I first came here I sort of hated this place

It was the middle of summer

Lobster people crawled out of the woodwork

Traffic mess

The constant smell of ice cream and fish and chips

Screams from the amusement park rides

Seemed to carry for miles

An image sticks in my head

A few hundred yards from where I sit now

The height of summer

A rugged looking old man stood on the concrete promenade

And played some equally rugged notes

From a saxophone

While a woman sat on the edge

Legs wide open

Revealing whatever you wanted to see

And swayed, beer in hand, to the music

In the background an old yacht had fallen on its side

And lay prone in the water

That’s Southend for you

There’s charm, but you have to be creative about it

There was always this sense 

Right from the beginning

That’s I’m not at home in this town

Or city

Whatever

And I never was

But familiarity has its charm

Certainly to me

But that’s my problem

I hate goodbyes

And here I am

Another goodbye to another place

This one a solitary journey

That precious few saw precious little of

I look down the seafront

I think I can almost make out the shape

Of the Royal Hotel

I can afford to take a few minutes more here

No one’s waiting for me

And here I am

Taking it slow

As it all rushes by