In defence of Hastings - poem

[moonjiver]

I promise I'll never post anything as long as this again! It's how it came out when I wrote it - I must have been high on something .. Seems an appropriate comment at present with so many people waking up to the offbeat attractions of this small town.


IN DEFENCE OF HASTINGS

Some disdainful London papers
Have some very favourite capers,
Love to give a proper pasting
To the seaside town of Hastings.
Tory scribes in baggy flannels
Back from gîtes across the channel
Proclaim that there’s nowhere needier,
More degenerate, frankly seedier
Than this nonconformist quarter,
And the tabloids really slaughter
Misbehavers, love to slap down
What they designate a crap town.
Ah, but don’t they see things turning?
Can’t the social pundits burning
To spout forth on deprivation
Feel the seismic new vibrations?
Armchair critics in the media
Really ought to keep a beadier
Eye upon this offbeat area
Where to us there’s nothing scarier
Than fast city life which never
Bore the best fruits of endeavour.
Charley Chaplin, Gogh and Mozart
Knew well that in making great art
Lack of shekels or privation
Did not block their inspiration.

So, some of the London masses
Should lift up their well-fed asses,
Trek to this bohemian beehive
Where in every quarter things thrive.
They will find tattooed creative
Types producing innovative
Painting, film and strange new sculpture,
Bursting boundaries of culture.
Nose-ringed guys in backstreet taverns,
Bars and insalubrious caverns
With their big guitars are singing
Stuff that leaves your eardrums stinging,
Fresh, raw songs with anguish aching,
Written when the dawn was breaking.
In the corners long-haired poets
Scribble coz they have to do it.
Arty red-haired nymphs in flowing
Robes float round in Hastings showing
That their lives have other passions
Than the vacuousness of fashion.
Hastings is not milk and honey,
We’re not really led by money
And although our brand of culture
Does not suit fastidious vultures,
May be challenging or contentious,
It will never be pretentious!

© Tony Frost 2015

[Richard]

Great Stiff moonjiver !!

wish I had such a free-flow of interconnecting ideas.
The place is said to be getting more 'edgy' these days

[Richard]

sorry - I meant stuff not "stiff".

[moonjiver]

Think you may have made an intuitive or Freudian slip - I was indeed quite stiff after writing that one and rather exhausted!

Thanks for the appreciation. I think Hastings has for long been quite edgy, that's what I like about it. But I've given up trying to work out what really "addicts" me to the place. I've had a great time here but also a fair amount of problems, especially with the more eccentric inhabitants. Maybe I just like a bit of pain!

[Richard]

for me it's the better quality of life, the endless variety and the fact that people have a sense of identity and feel free to do what they want.
You always get the odd character(s) who are immature and selfish.