LIVING BY THE WATER

So much for my claim last post that I was going to put the poem away in a drawer for some months. Instead I took it to a meeting of the Secret Poets and received some first rate constructive feedback. Thank you Secrets.
I'd actually just finished reading a book about collaboration, called Help! by Thomas Brothers, which argues that Duke Ellington and The Beatles were the outstanding composers and performers they were because they knew how to collaborate with others. It's an interesting and positive argument. I know I derive a great deal from sharing and discussing with other poets.

Living by the Water

His last great splendid had sailed,

he walked the changing shore,

watched the waves,

kidded himself that a life

lived beside the water kept it real.

Eventually it sank in.

His last great splendid had sailed

and here he was,

quenched in brine and red biddy,

discovering he was the wrong side of a sea

too deep to wade, too far to leap.

The sun had set, the night was cold.

So what's different? 
The layout is changed and two lines have been removed. You can compare the previous version here. In the third line in the second stanza I have removed the word illusions as it was thought to be superfluous.
I think as a poem it's about there.

Here are the Fab Four with Penny Lane. Oh for the days of psychedelia! I was eleven in 1967, just discovering music and I thought it would be like this for ever.

Until next time.