Leaning trees, slanted with the flow of long-gone storm winds, slump
their backs upon each other, clinging on with tendril-like branches.
Light slips through the larger gaps, blinking between fast-moving clouds
above woods that hang over pebbled beaches
scattered with curved, water worn slate.
Early afternoon glow splits itself through triangles formed by fallen trees,
as cigarette smoke jumps from one hazy shaft of light to another.
Tree-webs shimmer silver, trickling down to the forest floor
where they weave their way from branch to branch, avoiding
the bulging tumour-shrooms.
Sea-birds burst from the frothing shore, grazing the surf with black wing-tips,
whilst the Sun tends to yawning waves, flickering them white as they rise, before they darken with the fall.
So the surface warps with the shifting light,
settling to a calm at the peninsula wall;
old, sturdy brickwork, pock-marked tangerine above the rim of the tide’s touch,
where seaweed splays itself against the moist surface, cradling driftwood and crumbled stone.
Lips purse at a collapsed entranceway, a dirtied wound where roots have upturned rock,
leading to a mangled mess of thorns that linger; grazing scalps and biting at shoulders
of those who follow faded trails on the eve of spring,
in this rose-bush graveyard.
The path falters in spine-bending hollows, where figures hunch by leafless trees
and the gentle splashing of sea can be heard,
post-pubescent boys wipe their brows,
sweating like men in the humid, prickly grove,
before adventuring further, dancing
between the aged branches and bent stems,
catching the sunshine as they emerge into open ground,
like sea-birds fleeing the wet sand.
Mountains hulk behind the forest, birthing the coast’s highest cusp;
peaks of white and grey that meet the sky’s edge, risen on green slopes
moulded against the dwarfed woodland and seashore.
On a cloudy day, they intimidate storms with their size,
and lightning flashes in sunken valleys, where thunder can only echo
to the summit,
mumbling up the mountain-side like a dull snore.
Further along the horizon, the hillsides drop to the sea, one by
one, like finger-tips fading to a fist
in retreat from water’s breath.
Upon the peninsula’s head stand roofless ruins; an isolated
playground of brick and stone drained of colour,
where water wobbles over sand-breaks into rock-pools,
sinking through deep cracks that splintered the shattered patchwork walls.
Foundation guts spill to the sea over misshapen iron stumps, rusted red and orange,
jutting from the brickwork beach,
wrapped tightly in black seaweed vines that sag sadly,
serving fresh shells to nesting oystercatchers.
Remains of windows and doors form frames full of beauty,
angled towards Beaumauris and the Great Orme;
Beaumauris huddles to the northwest, shrunken in shyness,
opposing Snowdonia’s mountainous eastern presence,
where ridgeback sky-piercers slouch beneath newly formed dome clouds.
And elsewhere, across the vast green haze of water,
Great Orme trails away from Llandudno,
a lonely mass of cragged cliff-face,
accompanied by dazing wind farms that whirl lazily
as the sun drools across the waves.
The tide soothes the shore, lapping at the ruins like an old lover, growing
quietly
whilst the world passes by.
Such silent places hide just out of sight.
dededos
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
blakekathryn
