To My Wife On Our Seventh Wedding Anniversary

TO MY WIFE ON OUR SEVENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

               Seven times seven times seven times
               seven times seven times seven times
               seven memories fill these years
               forgotten memories of tears
               that fell when fear
               occasionally came near
               and though this is the time to scratch
               the itch that's under the other's skin
               there isn't in this world a wind
               that ever could blow out our match

               © GERALD ENGLAND


Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 22nd June 1981

Publication

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

Three-Year-Old

THREE-YEAR-OLD

               Bright for his age,
               he wants chips with everything,
               knows that beans means Heinz
               and will drink anything
               if it's not too hot.
               He's got two Gran-mas
               and is proud of the fact.
               He shuts all doors behind him,
               switches on the television,
               but only after asking.
               All telephone calls are from Grandma.
               His eyes are bright with mischievousness;
               Each morning he says hello
               to the face in the mirror,
               pulls his Daddy out of bed,
               then fetches him his clothes
               in order, one by one.
               He can find the things that Mummy mislays
               but leaves his own clothes where they drop.
               Vainer than any girl,
               he is defiant yet loves to obey.
               Sometimes he knows what you are thinking
               before you do yourself.
               He is my son. I love him.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 1st June 1981

Publication

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

Baby's Smile

BABY'S SMILE

Lain content across my chest,
my eyes reflected in your blue,
an emptied bottle by our side,
you tell me all I need to know.

A baby does not smile -
those spinster midwives say -
it is merely wind that on expulsion
causes an involuntary upturn of the lips

and only by evoking a response
does the infant come to realise
the possible pleasures of repetition
and his world builds up by recognition.

Yet as we lie here, skin to skin,
you commence the conversation -
having the answer, I do not ask -
is love but the perpetuation of a burp ?

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 1st May 1981

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION
(Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1988 Psychopoetica (UK)
1998 Brobdingnagian Times (Ireland)

Mother England

MOTHER ENGLAND

She is Mother England
suffering a modicum
of morning sickness in the evening
and feeling somewhat heavier
than in her slim-trim days
of pre-pregnancy dieting.

She is Mother England
busy knitting babygros
and searching all the ads
for secondhand cots,
trying to remember
her antenatal clinic dates.

She is Mother England.
The taut swelling of skin
from where comes kicks
hides the lap on which
a three-year-old would sit.

He says there's a baby there,
the result of "Daddycation".
She is Mother England.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 1st January 1981

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1986 PENNINE POETS 1966-1986 (Heckmondwike, Fighting Cock Press)
1989 White Rose Literary Magazine (UK)

The Beach Ball

THE BEACH BALL

A mother and father are to be seen on the beach
With them is a small boy with an inflatable ball
When he loosens his grasp the wind takes hold
It rolls the ball and with gathering speed hurls it seaward

Now the father is seen scurrying in chase
The ball rests in pools but as the father nears
a gust blows it on again over the rocks
The father can only follow after its flight

Gulls and guillemots and baby terns flee their sea- wracked rocks
as a panting dodging figure dances forward
The ball now wave-borne is floating slowly shoreward
Surely it will catch the sandbank of the shelving beach
to fall at last into the father's reaching arms

But the wind has the winning over the waves
Relinquishing the struggle the father returns
to console his son now playing with his mother
having already forgotten the bright beach ball

And when the wind in the morning has abated
Will the ball be found on some more southerly shore
to delight another child playing on the tideline
- a bright bouncing bonus to his holiday ?

Or will the wind have changed to anger the sea
and smashed the ball in the pounding of some crumbling cliff
its remnants joining the deathbed of a thousand shellfish
picked at by the early morning gulls.

© Gerald England

Composed: Bridlington, 2nd September 1979

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1997 NASA (USA)

Ballade of Domestic Upheaval

BALLADE OF DOMESTIC UPHEAVAL

The house is in a mess I'm sorry to have to say
It's falling all to pieces is the baby's pram
I don't know who it is is going to pay
unless all my horses win in one grand slam
Sometimes it's me who feels like running home to Mam
Perhaps Ernie will send a thousand in tomorrow's mail
Checking the Pools only makes me swear and damn
and all the while the dog just laughs and wags his tail

I did get one letter in the post today
inviting me down to meeting in Birmingham
about the plans for some new motorway
but really I think the whole scheme's a sham
and partly a plot to bring back the tram
and lure commuters back from British Rail
I take a bottle of whisky and pour a dram
and all the while the dog just laughs and wags his tail

The baby pours his milk all over his tray
and bangs his cup down with a thumping wham
then trots off merrily up the stairs to play
The wife talks about some new slimming programme
while cutting herself a good thick slice of ham
She wonders why my face has gone all pale
but says it's probably due to yesterday's lamb
and all the while the dog just laughs and wags his tail

ENVOI

Prince, can't I have just a little bit of jam ?
The butter has gone sour and the bread is stale
My mother-in-law regards me as a ram
and all the while the dog just laughs and wags his tail

© Gerald England

Composed: Oldham, 1st June 1979

Publication

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

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© Gerald England

Composed: Oldham, 22nd September 1978

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1984 Issue One (UK)

The Poetic Thing

THE POETIC THING

I would like to do the poetic thing
I would like to run naked into the sea
A symbolic cleansing of my filthy body
An act of simple ritual and pious purity
But I am afraid
Not of the devils of the deep
I cannot do it
for if I do
the law will nick me, lock me up
charge me with indecent exposure
And if I escape the law
the cold will get me,
lay me down in hospital
with double pneumonia
So I merely wash my hands
buy a peace offering
of fish and chips
and go home

© Gerald England

Composed: Flamborough North Landing, 9th June 1978

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1999 The Affiliate (Canada)
1990 YOUNG MINDS (Hull, Psychopoetica)
1990 2nd Rapture (UK)
1990 Lucidity (USA)
1993 Pomes (UK)

Haunted

HAUNTED

"The day that the rains came down"
This is the melody that has haunted me
since we first together to Bury went
I had hared over the Snake to see you
with just another weekend's courting on my mind
You asked me to take you to Bury via country lanes
It rained so hard I think I might have been drunk on the outside
The water fell flop flop from our coats
forming deep puddles in the thick pile carpet
of the jeweller's shop where a month's wage
disappeared in a diamond ring
We were engaged before I really knew
Everyone else was rushing round dodging between doorways
while we in a dream walked wet but not weary
Once we visited Bury in a warm October sun
buying clothes for our daughter
the day before she died
Our years of happy marriage don't rely on the sunshine
for it is the rain that has haunted the memory

© Gerald England

Composed: Bridlington, 6th June 1978

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1986 White Rose (UK)
1995 REMEMBERING FORGETTING (Hull, Psychopoetica)

Winding Rhyme

WINDING RHYME

Baby what shall we do with you ?
What are your windies going to do ?
Are they going to come right up ?
Are you going to give us a bu'p ?
Or do you think that they'll go down
Or merely rumble round and roun' ?

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Oldham, 2nd January 1978

Publication

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

One Monday

A DAY'S WORK (MONDAY 19/9/77)

A prose-poem


© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Oldham, 20th September 1977

Publications

1979 Christian Poetry (USA)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1990 Prakalpana Literature (India)

Homage to Ruth

HOMAGE TO RUTH

On the seventeenth you came
from your mother's womb
sixty-plus years and a day
after the grandmother
whose name you bear
And on the seventeenth next
you were lowered into the tomb
freshly dug for you and
for your family that follow

The Lord gave you to us
and for three heavy weeks
you were our joy, our hope,
and our future

Your little life fought hard
You showed your will
When the nurses fed you through your nose
disregarding pain your tiny hands
yanked out the plastic tube
your nose upturned in contented peace

Late on the twelfth your heart gave out

We thank God for those three weeks
We praise him in our grief
He wipes away our fears
and dries our requiescent tears
We have learnt what it is to grieve
We have passed through the severity
of our sufferings

and we are finding that incomprehensible peace
which always will be yours

© Gerald England

Composed: Oldham, 25th October 1975

Publications

1977 EYES (Huddersfield, Sight Saving Association)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

[4k]

© Gerald England

Composed: Ackworth, 25th September 1973

Publications

1976 MEETINGS AT THE MOOR'S EDGE (West Kirkby, Headland)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1982 Interstate (USA)
1993 FOUR SQUARE REPLAY (Leeds, Krax)

[4e]

© Gerald England

Composed: Sheffield, 26th June 1973

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1987 Prophetic Voices
1993 FOUR SQUARE REPLAY (Leeds, Krax)

[5e]

© Gerald England

Composed: Sheffield, 26th June 1973

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1987 Prophetic Voices

(22)

the newly-born child
capturing his parents' love -
the frightened cat sulks

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Cambridge, 12th September 1970

Publications

1972 Wormwood Review (USA)
1976 MEETINGS AT THE MOOR'S EDGE (West Kirkby, Headland)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1990 New Cicada (Japan)
1993 Mirrors (USA)

Foetus

FOETUS

Without guile
the little living bubble
within the womb
came to exist
as fruit implanted
in a rich pasture,
suckling on its mother,
absorbed entirely
within a world
of tissue and cartilage and blood

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Sheffield, 20th January 1970

Publications

1976 MEETINGS AT THE MOOR'S EDGE (West Kirkby, Headland)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

(5)

child lost in big store;
mother arrives on the scene -
spanking and crying

© Gerald England

Composed: Ackworth, 24th December 1969

Publications

1973 Mac (UK)
1976 MEETINGS AT THE MOOR'S EDGE (West Kirkby, Headland)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1987 Red Pagoda (USA)
1993 Mirrors (USA)

*****
haha mitsuke
maigo wo uchinu
nao nakinu

Japanese translation by Sakuzo Takada.

Publications

1987 Red Pagoda (USA)

(3)

lunch almost ready;
distracted by bridegroom's kiss -
first burnt offering

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ackworth, 20th December 1969

Publications

1970 MOUSINGS (Sheffield, Headland)
1970 Headland (UK)
1971 OVERGROUND (Pontefract, Whitwood and District Arts Association)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1990 Maple Valley Vine (USA)
1991 Envoi (UK)

Don't Smother The Fire Mother

DON'T SMOTHER THE FIRE, MOTHER

Don't smother the fire, mother
we all of us feel the cold
Don't smother the fire, mother
you need its warmth when you're growing old
Don't smother the fire, mother
its cheery flame dispels the gloom
Don't smother the fire, mother
let its warmth invade the room
Don't smother the fire, mother
but let it burn up bright
Don't smother the fire, mother
for it is our only light

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ackworth, 12th December 1969

Publications

1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1993 The Affiliate (Canada)
1997 8 (Internet)