The Navigation Arms
Let loose your senses
Released your defences
Of navigation
Nicotine, amber, creamy stout
Blackcurrant, cider, scallywags about
Mingling in with the inn crowd
Sing along, sing along Tom Dowd
Unsteadily stepping on the pebble shore
Pause, for a wee under the balustrade
Heads already beginning to thicken
Slow breathing, breathing clean seaside air
In the distance, listen; those screams of delight
Shivering, shaken, shaken out of the moonlight
Beach night, moonlight, starlight, summer flight
Listen to the screams, those screams of delight
Branscombe Beer, Plymouth Gin
Girls drink sin and tonic
We are only humans
This is no Sputnik, Brojnic
Back in this room, I’ve been here before
Eiderdown, radio, worn out floor
No one rings tonight, no one ever does
Words arise from below
Conversing, wandering, escaping
Philandering along the promenade
Planning permission is applied for
To turn it into flats
The locals complain out loud
But they haven’t, have they
They have never stayed here
They’ve never crossed the threshold
Into this ancient, decaying ,dilapidated space
Some say they’re business folk that run it
In it for what they can
In fact that’s why I stay here
Not to be distracted
But to feel the man
To feel the man
Who also is neglected
It’s closing time at the Navigation
It’s closing time at the Bay Hotel
Close these places slowly
Close these spaceless souls so so slowly
