I was driving down the GSP tonight (as I am wont to do), and just noticing something, something that seems very Jersey to me, shore planes… now what the hell are shore planes might you ask… and surely I might have an answer, going back as far as I can remember (not that it is that long in celestial time) these biplanes (well I imagined they were biplanes they certainly sounded like it), well, anyway, these planes would drag these huge banners back and forth across the beach sky like “Eat at Joes” and similar jargon, no websites because this was pre-internet (somehow we grew up without it), but anyway those planes, another one of those very specific things that is dug in there into my Jersey DNA, I remember the sound, to look up from my castle building or crab hunting, such a distinct memory linked to a sound and a time, and the sand…

the following is something I wrote and posted on Facebook a while ago, it is Very Jersey specific, but I liked it anyway, but with today I kind of regret not shoehorning  in the planes… how on earth did I forget the planes? ?!  I guess inspiration was incomplete that day, I suppose I could rewrite it, but, that does not seem to be my way….

the squeaky swings
of phillip’s beach
rusty chains
green burning seats

sunlight sneaks
through the gaps
white-wood shower stalls
smoothed with age
from water’s fall

the yellow striped awning
the wide-wood steps to the gate
hardly hold
the little wild ones at bay

neon buckets mold towers
little hands fashion moats
the unrelenting tide
sweeps away all that is built

names in the sand
spirals and feet
all disappear
in the surf
even the sand crabs
diving head first

driving home, exhausted
a day in the sun
a day on the ocean
a nap in the car

back safe at home
the night drift to sleep
still riding up and down
the waves of phillip’s beach