I bought the damned place back in ‘seventy-three.
A perfect retreat, the sellers told me;
With the sea sparkling blue far beyond the neat hedge,
I wasn’t expecting a life on the edge.

But I couldn’t relax; I realised the surf
Was noisily stealing my acre of turf,
Reducing the value of what I stood on;
By the mid nineteen-eighties, a quarter had gone.

At the end of the noughties, most of my land
Was down on the beach as boulders and sand.
The heirloom my children had blithely relied on
Was being usurped by my neighbour, Poseidon.

I felt that the ocean was taking my life.
My shed disappeared, and later, my wife;
The lawn and the fishpond are both in the briny;
My garden, once huge, is now only tiny.

They say that mankind is spoiling the sea,
But it’s clearly the other way round for me.
I’ll soon be a victim of shoreline diffusion;
My life, like my home, nears a salty conclusion.

It’s only a matter of when, not if
My house takes a dive from the incoming cliff.
The council have told me it’s time to vacate,
But I’m much too old. I’m resigned to my fate.

The plaster is cracking, the floorboards are bending;
This looks like a literal cliff-hanger ending.
I feel like Canute, on his throne on the beach;
Davy Jones’ locker has come within reach.

You might sometimes consider a home by the sea,
But take my advice; don’t end up like me –
Battered by breakers until I’m a stiff.
Don’t buy a cottage too close to a cliff.