The steep cobbled streets
echo the click of killer-heels,
the shrill-as-seagull shrieks
of improbably young mothers.

Daily, turned-out from lodgings,
they heedlessly wheel their pram,
ignore their bawling infants
in favour of Facebook friends.

The promenade is patrolled
by the old, sour and scowling.
Those who, hating foreign food,
risk crumbling clifftop rooms,

take tea in jaded hotels
that throb with tropical heat.
Basking like ancient lizards
unblinking and scaly skinned.

Eye-watering, the harbour
stinks of long-forgotten fish,
seagull shit, the spun sugar
of neon-pink candy-floss.

With mock-jock tartan decor
Big Dick’s fish-bar’s menu
offers cholesterol and innuendo,
to tempt overweight matrons.

Drunks shamble; unshaven,
ash-streaked, piss-stained,
drag on thin roll-ups.
Weave to no fixed abode,

past disapproving cafés,
a fucked-up funicular,
to lie on grey sheets
in a room with no heat.

A former nurse, Tom was a ‘late starter’ in writing and is trying to make up lost time. He has had articles published in journals, written a prize winning short radio script for BBC Newcastle and was a prize winner in last year’s New Writing North Crime Short Story competition. He has had several poems published in Orbis and has just completed an MA in creative writing at Newcastle University.