Here’s to things we love

Oh here’s to Brighton

A town that says ‘do your worst’

Says here’s to the hug that won’t let go first, taking the sting out of signal failure at Three Bridges

Says here’s to the archers and all the weekend flotsam that washes up beneath 

Says here’s to the orderly queue of shit even deeper below, a feat of Victorian engineering

Says here’s to a grubby sunset and the whirling twirling starlings 

Says here’s to 11,000 a year at American Express, crisp and shiny in a Primark suit

Says here’s to chips and curry sauce and the crunch of leather jackets

Says here’s to pile-it-high roasts with all the trimmings and the gurning turning chefs with nicotine knuckles

Says here’s to the Steiner school kids and their lost ambition 

like mist drifting across the downs 

Says here’s to saying sorry 100 times in the Kemp Town Coop and the calming absence of choice

Says here’s to the wind between the tower blocks battering your London hair

Says here’s to a sun drenched nap, half way back to Hove

Says here’s to setting sail in a mobility scooter, “ahoy” says the fat man blowing along the prom 

Says here’s to giggling at the turnip palace as you pass the joint, resting your head on a soft white thigh

Says here’s to an overpriced painted rock and a passive aggressive sales pitch in the hallway of an open house

Says here’s to watching over us wise old channel like a tear in the sack of an eye ready to roll

Says here’s to the beach of misshaped hearts

Says here’s to falling asleep on the couch Sunday night and missing the rail replacement bus

Says here’s to getting here

Says here’s to never leaving

Here’s to the things we love