Hastings

Hastings

You have drug problems, and some pretty good pubs

Hastings

You have beautiful woodland and back-alleys of grime

Hastings

You have Saturday night chaos and Sunday morning bemused tranquillity

Hastings

You have discarded heroin needles next to graffiti about love

Hastings

I grew up in you

Hastings

I have walked your surface as many different people

Hastings

I am a drop in your oceans

Hastings

I can feel the rhythm of your tides

Hastings

My tears have often got you wet

Hastings

In ecstasy, I have performed clumsy handstands on your withered grass

Hastings

Clarity and confusion run into each-other nightly, and dance dialectical in the space between your citizens

Hastings

I have skipped through you at 4am drunkenly shouting half remembered lines from Ginsberg

Hastings

I have thrown countless pebbles into your sea and felt calm

Hastings

I have kicked a pint glass at your coppers

Hastings

I am one of your very few Leninists

Hastings

You have provided everything that is important and beautiful to me

Hastings

I have felt your rain pour over my face, and perhaps

Something of me ran into the water

And soaked into your pavements, as past generations have

And will continue into the air of the future

As new feet walk over them

Living strange lives

Like you and me.