All Life is in Blackpool

Image © Gerald England

              "ALL LIFE IS IN BLACKPOOL"

              Inside the Tower

              mirrors distort,

              lights play music,

              children act out

              their fantasies

              in a mock jungle,

              while everyone dances

              to the organ

              that rises from the floor;

              there is laughter in shadows,

              an infinity of illusions;

              Victorian opulence

              and video creations

              share a world

              with pirhanas and cichlids,

              and turtles that collide in tanks.

              Five hundred feet and more above,

              the scene is of a model town

              where humanoid ants move about

              and toy cars park on roofs -

              tyre-tracks doodle on sand,

              the horizon stretching

              to far off cities

              and to northern hills.

              Up here is the clear view

              shut out only

              by the safety net;

              from here

              the only

                       way

                           is

                              DOWN.

              © GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Blackpool, 22nd June 1989

Publication

1999 Manifold (UK)

Sonnet for a Lost Roman Road

SONNET FOR A LOST ROMAN ROAD

Treading by compass the unseen line,
Following the way the Romans led,
Thinking only of the road ahead,
Looking for a place to realign,
Bringing their direction back to mine,
Fording then each river bed,
Crossing over each watershed,
Marvelling at such a straight design.

The stones lie mostly below the turf;
A barn there and an oak tree here
Point to this route no longer used
Under the land of some Saxon serf
Who ploughed his fields without a tear
For all the history he had seduced.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 1st February 1980

Publications

1986 Acumen (UK)
1989 Vigil (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 Black Creek Review (USA)
2000 Manifold (UK)

Pontefract General Infirmary: An Impression

PONTEFRACT GENERAL INFIRMARY:AN IMPRESSION

In the centre of the town
by the main east-west road
it stands;
Victorian-looking at the front
but very modern at the back
by Mayor's Walk and Friarwood
stretching from the Valley Gardens
to the nurseries where liquorice was cultivated
but not any more.

Inside - a mass of corridors,
lifts to the fourth floor and fifth basement,
maternity wards, children's wards, Casualty ward,
offices and kitchens,
X-ray units,
Out-patients'.

A constant hubbub of people surround the walls,
doctors, nurses, matron, specialists,
ambulance-men, office-staff, cleaners and caterers,
radiographers, pathologists, and of course
there are patients as well.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Glasgow, 17th July 1967

Publication

1968 Manifold (UK)