The Poetry Society Celebrating our centenary

We wake to a brutal day, the bay

stinging with light scrubbed to splinters

over fibre-glass hulled waves.

A hillside of vines chokes in ochre dust;

traffic burning the air, masts chiming,

sun incinerating sea's prophecy of calm.

The village seethes with its woken multitude,

its dead-fish stench of waste-bins sickening

our appetite for coffee, croissants, bread.

Cafés are wanton with speech, sea

whispers at the quayside's confessional,

fishermen search their nets, pour

a silver night onto snow.