I've been fumbling with the poem for a while now. I recently included it in a poetry reading and it sounds much better than it looks, but I also edited it while I was reading. Unfortunately I didn't take notes after the reading.
Seaside Blues
At Margate we did not walk along the water.
The promenade offered a better view:
in front, the dove-grey ocean;
behind, a concrete slab of flats.
Years ago Brits flocked to this spot,
a handy jaunt from London.
Even Oscar Wilde would attest
to its lack of snobbishness.
I am very glad you went to Margate;
It is a nice quiet spot not vulgarised by crowds of literary people.
Tonight, we take a wrong turn off the bandstand
and confront a modern scene:
ladies of the night
and a man being obscene.
Towards our hotel the sea-bathing hospital is brambled
and a sign on it reads: Sold: Ferrari.
So this is seaside England today:
Car companies buy up the shoreline,
the grand hotels look beaten,
the boardwalk glows with marquees.
It is hardly Stratford,
but people still choose to stay.
And in the air there is something that tugs at the past:
an imagined memory of corseted ladies and well-suited men
walking arm in arm, as we have just done.
The sunset is massive.
It bleeds into water.