Paradise-on-Sea

Sussex shit. I'm still only in Sussex. Every time, I think I'm going to wake up back in paradise.

Shivering, collared up, sitting in the weak watery English sunshine.
Sipping powdery coffee
'Neath the dockyard chimney
jutting skyward from the
grey-brown Shoreham shingle shore.
Bacon-gristle soaks bleached white bread -
congealing quickly on the cold chipped china plate,
a fresh breeze whips soiled serviettes from green tin-tables -
its mad-drunk, fluttering, stuttering, flying-flotsam dance.

This should be hell.
And I, having glimpsed paradise,
Sucked down diamond-draught air,
Gorged on verdant emerald hills,
Lain back and stared at the soporific sapphire blue skies.
Yeah, I,
I should really know.

But it's not.
I'm re-assured by
The traditional, cyclical, elemental struggle of the Brits -
Where grey skies, sleeting, cold-showers are always just
A cyclone away.

And if I've learnt one thing,
Heaven's promises - burgeoning beauty, endless tranquility, peace.
Soon turn to trappings of a surreal, Hell.
After all,
Aren't forbidden fruits
Plucked to escape that constant, anodyne, endless, Eden?

England - grim land of opportunity.
Heart of a lost empire,
Who's disparate children have mostly flown the nest.
You still hold something for those that wander back;
But I wonder how long it will take -

Before once again, cloaked and clogged in the mundane,
An adventurer's dream pulls me back to Paradise.