The Pygmy Giant

by Geoff Stevens

The Local Authority has excused its employees
from maintaining the cliff-lift in winter
they have redeployed their deckchair staff
and God has given the sun a holiday
and yet no one has informed the people
in the still-illuminated slot machine palace
or the salesmen at the shellfish stalls
that waste their voices in the wind
calling in holidaymakers that aren’t there.
The open-top bus passes by empty
like a Marie Celeste on wheels.

Geoff Stevens is the editor of Purple Patch poetry magazine, and the Ted Slade Award winner for 2009.