Lights

Photograph © Gerald England

LIGHTS

As midnight approaches

I stand with the dog

watching the embers

of a fire

dying on the beach.

Behind me are the lights

of several caravans.

Three cottages on

once-uninhabited Erraid,

Robert Louis Stevenson's

unhappy childhood home,

throw their light

across the Sound.

Beyond the black shapes

of sundry, rocky islets

are the bright lights of Iona

shining across the water

Earlier from the beach

we had watched the sun

set over I.,

each ray illuming

a pigeon-toe sky.

Now as morrow

becomes day

dog and master

settle to sleep

having seen.

© Gerald England

Composed: Fionnphort, 1st August 1984

Publications

1985 Periaktos (UK)
1989 Eavesdropper (UK)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)

Intercity

INTERCITY

Sharing its route with slow canals
meandering rivers, rolling lanes and rapid roads,
the breakfastless train sped hungrily
from a cold city of silent warmth
to a smoking hot metropolis
where compassion melted
and was lost among manipulative
manoeuvrings of committees

Walking the streets as a penance
revealed much more than all
the fruitless travelling underground
Though the high notes were out of tune
the melody of the flautist by the market
where Punch and Judy first were seen
accorded well with the day's mood
and left one memory that may alone remain
when all the rest is best forgot

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: London, 15th May 1979

Publications

1990 Eavesdropper (UK)
1995 TOPS (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 Black Creek Review (USA)
2001 Mir (USA)

Beauty Spot

BEAUTY SPOT

Bare midriffs above belt-like skirts
dangerously diverting drivers' eyes
Low gears on steep summer-sun-sweating hills
forsaking the motorways for country lanes
A Metro-van chasing an Audi Sports
obliquely overtaking an old VW
Sun-seeking families of all shapes and sizes
spilling out of Volvos, Vauxhalls and Fords
Ice-cream vans and mobile tea-shops
carrying on their business with acumen
Babies wailing, children playing,
radios blaring out news and noise
And somewhere behind the hoary, human hordes
lies the beauty of the scenery they've all come to see

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Sheffield, 1st June 1970

Publications

1971 Bogg (UK)
1973 Eulogy (UK)
1980 THE RAINBOW AND OTHER POEMS (Heckmondwyke, Fighting Cock Press)
1990 Eavesdropper (UK)

Musaphobia

MUSAPHOBIA

I heard a new word today.
It has two meanings
apparently;
- quite distinct - I am assured.
Musaphobia: dislike of mice
                   or poetry.

I've often been asked
whether I were man
         or mouse.

I can answer that now
for there is a likeness there -
the seeming insignificant
which none-the-less
can frighten the mighty ELEPHANT,
or make women
           stand
                 on chairs        
                           & lift
                                  their skirts.

Yes the poem does have affinity with
   the mouse.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Glasgow, 1st May 1967

Publications

1970 MOUSINGS (Sheffield, Headland)
1989 Eavesdropper (UK)
1990 Inkshed (UK)
1997 Tara's Poetry Page (Internet)
2010 Chanticleer (Internet)