The sea runs back against itself With scarcely time for breaking wave To cannonade a slatey shelf And thunder under in a cave.

Before the next can fully burst The headwind, blowing harder still, Smooths it to what it was at first - A slowly rolling water-hill.

Against the breeze the breakers haste, Against the tide their ridges run And all the sea's a dappled waste Criss-crossing underneath the sun.

Far down the beach the ripples drag Blown backward, rearing from the shore, And wailing gull and shrieking shag Alone can pierce the ocean roar.

Unheard, a mongrel hound gives tongue, Unheard are shouts of little boys; What chance has any inland lung Against this multi-water noise?

Here where the cliffs alone prevail I stand exultant, neutral, free, And from the cushion of the gale Behold a huge consoling sea.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDvETLfiDXg&feature=related]

From the geyser ventilators Autumn winds are blowing down On a thousand business women Having baths in Camden Town

Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, Steam's escaping here and there, Morning trains through Camden cutting Shake the Crescent and the Square.

Early nip of changeful autumn, Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors, At the back precarious bathrooms Jutting out from upper floors;

And behind their frail partitions Business women lie and soak, Seeing through the draughty skylight Flying clouds and railway smoke.

Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones, Lap your loneliness in heat. All too soon the tiny breakfast, Trolley-bus and windy street!

“I don't think I am any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn't be.”

“Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life.”

BONUS BONUS BONUS: Hear him reading "Slough."

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-935cbXTt_g]