I looked up

This is a final drafting….for now 🙂
few raise their eyes to look at clouds –
the skies hold intimations of eternal
considerations best left to theologians
 
town folk meander, mesmerised, eyes down,
skimming ‘essential news’ – others’ bargains,
Snapchat cappuccinos, cats, and kittens.
 
unlike those truly lost – scratching
‘S O S’ on desolation beaches,
or firing flares amid mountain seas
or standing in foreign fountain squares,
wrestling with maps, trying to figure
how they can get from where they are, to
the sepulchre of Sainte Someone-or-other.
                                                                   
urban lost souls, sighing silently,
nightly herd their head-down
weary rut-way home
to brawling kids
and supper on the sofa.
 
roll back to summer 74;
 
on a breezy esplanade,
Scarborough, as I remember,
scanning rows of cliff-top benches
tight with old-girl pensioners. their heads
spree-rinsed electric blue or shocking pink.
legs spread wide, brazenly flaunting bloomers
exactly the tint of their coiffures,
gauging the ‘tackle’ of young bucks passing –
a cackle of ‘kiss me quick’ Medusas.
 
although half-petrified, I gazed upwards –
finding the panorama glorious.
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Guaj

Interesting to see how this analysis of the “Brave(??) New World” develops.

Guaj

My Mother-in-Law was from Yorkshire, she loved Scarborough. You might have seen here there. She’d’ve been up for it in ’74! 🙂
Seriously this is getting better. I missed the bit about tourists lost reading maps, maybe because I’ve done just that.
I like the gentle sarcasm of the ever so slightly caustic observations of our weaknesses and foibles.
I guess your work appeals to my jaded view of humanity.

Guaj

This is turning into a classic saga. Thanks for the maps. I forgot to say the line “a cackle of ‘kiss me quick’ Medusas.” is a fucking diamond absolutely brilliant.