Boats lie dead on the horizon as seabirds

Wheel through pallid skies and squid

Work the seagrass under the wooden jetty

Where fishermen with hangovers gaze

Through bottle green waters at their lives

And late-night disputes with wives

Over undone chores unpaid bills

The dreadful denied desperation of

Endless repetition of purpose and place.

Another year gone more lines less hair

More rooms on the house less room in

The heart and the unspoken horror of the

Unthought life a steel cold stone in the gut

Eased only with fags and a drink and

Some time at the jetty under quiet skies

Watching empty plastic jellyfish bags

Ghost gliding through watery shadows.