I had too much to dream last night...

Dreams. I blame it all on those electric prunes! I walked off with the Mercury Prize for Music and Blackpool FC won the Champions' League - again; flying was as easy as stepping off the top of a tall building and universal Peace & Love engulfed our pretty planet. It wasn't always thus.

As a young boy back in the early '60s I was aware of the impending sense of doom triggered by the Cuba missile crisis. There was one frightening week-end in October 1962 when everyone thought that nuclear war was inevitable. Fortunately, the super-powers pulled back from the brink on the eve of destruction and I was able to finish reading Neville Shute's On The Beach - but I still remember a nightmare I had at the time. It was so vivid that it's remained fresh in memory for half a century and I've tried to capture its essence in this week's poem.

'Bathers' courtesy of Ruth Ratcliffe

By the way, if you've not encountered Michael Dobbs' brilliant investigative analysis of the Cuba missile crisis, One Minute To Midnight [Random House, 2009], the truth is more gripping than many a work of fiction.

On The Beach  

Slow-motion quiet hung upon us all,

the lull before the storm…

then everyone was running

with silent screams 

and panic in their eyes

as a thousand sun-like beachballs

came burning through the skies

and hissed into the sea.

I knew it was a lucid dream

and tried to wake

but failed, and so dreamt on.

Down on the sand,

part of a crowd but quite alone,

not knowing where to go or why

I headed for the water's edge.

And there we stood,

shocked clusters of sorry figures

at the farthest margin of the land

cloaked in a creeping, caustic mist.

Behind, an endless stream 

of stumbling bodies

jostled to the shore;

before, the poisoned tide 

relentlessly rolled in,

while overhead 

flew frenzied seagulls

screeching ‘nevermore’.

Thanks for reading. I wish you a good week-end. S