When we asked for people to send in poems for National Poetry Day which meant something ot them, we were particulalry struck with Blue Lagoon by William Smith. 

'I've just completed the Achieving Your Potential course at the University of Manchester and Hormoz mentioned this submission for poetry. This is a poem concerning a special place for me, a place called the Blue Lagoon up near Hartlepool on the North East coast. It's somewhere my dad loved and I often visited it with him to beachcombe and still do to remember him. I have written a series of poems about this area, but this is the latest.'

Blue Lagoon

Waning sun and deep smoke,
flexing like a writhing body
circling the towers sentinel.
Below, the honeycombed rocks and slag
lead out to the spit
dotted with angles of wood
torn and moulded by salt.

At its widest span, a sudden
form moves between the posts
hazed at its edges, hunkered:
head into collar, snatching
glimpses, searching
gone again
then reappearing.

Out by the water now
picking through the driftwood
eyes catching the lowering glow
blazing briefly, then sadly grounded
wounded, the brightness leaving
the sky as the first orange lamps
flick on over the river.

Turning away to the open sea
looking down now
to the curve of the coast.
Something in the posture
the drop of the shoulders
speaks of a harried worry
and there could be water

forming around the lids.
Salt dripping to salt.
A need for contact
that’s forever denied
since the schism
that left this outline
trapped in the mile of sand,

The bird ruled promenade
of stillness and longing
broken by occasional laughter
the fires of young visitors
the slow work of sculptors
beachcombers and pilgrims
as he was before the fall

The dawn missions:
breakfast in roadside cafés
dream land beckoning
rolling through the scrub
of jutting pipes and tethered horses,
that syrupy bitter smell like off marmalade
When emerging here

Here, where the light
Is snuffed from the sky
and the works start their
long night time churning
to daybreak, the river blackening
the ships and windmills
drifting on the horizon.

He will seek his quarry
when the sun returns.
For now he beds down,
where the dunes sink to a hollow
as a light wind
carries over his shape
lost in the place he loved.

William Smith