3308. OLD CHALK

OLD CHALK

The wind left bloodlines on the beachfront sand,

places where people had been dragged and

pummeled. The Inn at Old Chalk  -  or the

ruins of what once was there seventy years ago  -

were still up on the cliff. About a mile off,

to the left of there, the once-village graveyard

slumbered. The dead had played their dice

and plied their strife, long before, and, now,

it was all over and finished. The wind had

left bloodlines on the beachfront sand.

-

The people in the village, the tired ones,

the near-dead-but-not, still exclaimed

to one another about the ways things

were : 'The Bowdy boy, I watched; 

he died, there, on the beach.' Extending

a wiry, crooked finger, they flail at

pointing to something afar. 'The

lugger-boat, as I recall, had

quite nearly cut him in two.'

-

The wind grew fiery and messy;

the yellowing storm lashed and

tore. Like fire-rockets coming

from dirge and destruction,

broken pieces of another

world  -  now mangled and

torn  -  left only shreds of

a place that once was

Old Chalk Inn.