-Over the Rail Out to the Irish Sea by Paul Brookes

We picked our way down
to Peppercombe bay,
where the cliffs are paprika
and the grey stones wait
quietly, to be ground by the surf;
through the green hush of trees
to the place where there’s only
the wide sky and the salt sea.

-Sarah Connor

jagged teeth of rocks
black spikes along the shoreline
the slow hush of waves

-Bronwen Griffiths

Obsession

The sucking hiss of the indrawn breath of the tide
draws the land closer, grain by grain,

stealing, in tiny increments,
the gift it takes for itself and piles back on the shore.

This compulsion I know: drawn to the granite edges of you,
again turned aside.

Close as the heart’s core, or as far away as the moon,
are the sources of the timeless force that binds you to me.

Age by age;
tide by tide;
by the dark magic of gravity I take you now.

I am the ocean and you are my shore.
You will come to me.
Grain by grain, you will come to me.

-Yvonne Marjot

Precariously,
between slimy sea rock pools
I see it scuttles

-Paul Brookes

Sand clouds billows blown
hide fresh prey from predator
who waits all to clear

-Paul Brookes

In isolation
pools await the next tidal door
into the wider sea

-Paul Brookes