Skulls – A Halloween Meditation

A West Country Skull . . Photo: WHB2021

What better encapsulates
Life’s end
Dust to bone
In resolution
IlAnticipated
Never remembered
Indescribable experience
Expressed in an image

In memoriam
Deferring to Absent Guests
I give you
The Skull beneath the skin
The Quick extolling The Dead
A cadaverous resurrection
Memento More
Become Death’s Head
Where Is Thy Sting?
Heads You Lose
Tails? – I win
Bone Dry
Let Us. Pray.
All Bone – No Meat
Jolly Roger – Old Codger
Jammy Dodger
Brolly Bodger
Death’s Sting
Is corpsing
And, pared to the Bone,
Becomes Life’s Detritus
Leftover leftovers
Smile Of The Devil
Halloween’s halo
All Done and Dusted
Life’s slipstream
Dracula The Goth
Moonshine pale
Reborn as Life’s Dust
What Remains
Only the Death Mask
Wool Skull
To numb skull
Skullduggery again
Rebirthing as
Cranium geranium
Bonehead!

WHITBY – North Yorkshire

[  Photo Blog # 75  ]

Moving from my visits to the coastal areas of the far south-west of England over the past few weeks, I now wish to post over the next few Thursdays a number of galleries of my photographs from the opposite, North-Eastern, coasts of England.  This particular photograph collection is of the historic North Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby.  I have visited there before in a number of my earlier blogs.

The photographs below cover a variety of different scenes within the town . . .

Whitby (0) OS Map

 

 

Whitby (1)

The jawbones of a whale, framing the ancient Abbey and church on top of the cliffs on the southern bank of the River Esk as it meets the North Sea.  In the 18th and 19th centuries the whaling industry was thriving in Whitby.  Dozens of ships braved the Arctic seas off Greenland to hunt these elusive leviathans for their lucrative whale oil.  Many of the crews never came back.

Whitby (2)

A similar view, but this time showing the statue of Captain James Cook, gazing out to the North Sea, from where Cook first set out to sea in ships transporting coal to London and the River Thames. 

Whitby (3)

Close up view of the Cook Memorial

Whitby (4)

Looking North along the Yorkshire coast towards Sandsend

Whitby (5)

The sea entrance to Whitby Harbour

Whitby (6)

Modern reproduction of  HMS Endeavour, the British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand, from 1769 to 1771.

Whitby (7)

Whitby Inner Harbour looking south to the ruins of Whitby Abbey

Whitby (8)

The modern ‘Endeavour’s’ figurehead

Whitby (9)

Modern-day street entertainer at the entrance to one of Whitby’s many ancient ‘Yards’.   Visit my poem about this particular historic Whitby spot at:  ‘Argument’s Yard’ 

Whitby (10)

Queuing for entry to Whitby’s famous ‘Magpie Cafe’, renowned for its fresh fish and chip meals.

Whitby (11)

Goths in Whitby for one of its regular Goth Weekends’, a celebration of the fact that Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ novel begins its story near the ancient Abbey here.

Whitby (12)

More of Whitby’s Goths

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