West Pier

Here began our movie industry:
'Celebrated Animatographe' shows
just across the road—the first outside London.
Pioneer film-makers set up cameras
on the beach between the piers,
cranked the handle, took the seaside
from Brighton to gawping audiences
long before they saw the California coast.

Here day-trippers walked over water,
giggled at the foaming tide,
laughed aloud in front of mirrors,
snapped each other with their Brownies,
heads inserted in seaside postcard cutouts . . .
cursed when the grabber dropped the diamond ring.

Here World War One was fought out,
generals milling in the ballroom,
chalking up the death-toll just across the water.
They said you could hear the guns from here.

(Pinky preferred a knife and the Palace Pier.)