Christmas Present

CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Jesus Christ was God's Christmas present to the world!
Oh yes!
We opened the gift up very carefully
but we saved the wrappings
and threw away
the present!

© Gerald England

Composed: York, 7th July 1969

Publications

1970 MOUSINGS (Sheffield, Headland)
1970 Pontefract & Castleford Express (UK)
1970 Tait's Quarterly (UK)
1972 Roots (UK)
1972 Ludds Mill (UK)
1973 ENVIRONMENT (Thames Ditton, Ember Press)
1973 Purston Parish Magazine (UK)
1985 New Hope International (UK)
1990 Omnific (USA)

*****
WEIHNACHTGESCHENK

jesus christus war gottes weihnachtsgeschenk fur die welt
o ja
wir haben das geschenk sorgfaltig geoffnet
abet wir haben das geschenkpapier aufgehoben
und das geschenk
weggeworfen

gerald england

aus dem englischen ubersetzt von elly grothof-nouwen

Publications

1983 Lyrik-Mappe (Austria)
1985 New Hope International (UK)

*****
PRESENTE DE NATAL

[Portuguese translation by Teresinka Pereira- text not to hand]

Publications

1985 New Hope International (UK)
1986 Literatura Internacional (USA)

Epitaph for Two Vultures

EPITAPH FOR TWO VULTURES

Two demented vultures
sitting on Lover's Leap

Says one to the other -
The Age of Love
I fear
is over

© Gerald England

Composed: Ackworth, 7th June 1969

Publications

1970 MOUSINGS (Sheffield, Headland)
1970 Pontefract & Castleford Express (UK)
1990 Verve (USA)

Responsibility

RESPONSIBILITY

By the side of the road
on Moor Top Hill
there lies
a dead moggy

It's been there
a week now
It's time
someone shifted it

Me ?
I shan't touch it -
can't stand the things !

© Gerald England

Composed: Ackworth, 13th March 1968

Publications

1968 Breaktrhu (UK)
1970 Pontefract & Castleford Express (UK)
1973 Roots (UK)
1988 Cat's Eye (USA)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)
1994 The Good Society Review (UK)
1998 Graffito (Canada)

Spanning the River of My Childhood

SPANNING THE RIVER OF MY CHILDHOOD

I long to walk the way again
where in childhood days I walked
I remember how often I went
along the side of the river past the weir
over Low Green Fields by the River Went
through lovely Brocodale to the sewage works
but forgetting that turned off
along the bridal path to Thorpe,
to Badsworth and its church
and its row of tall poplar trees
lining the Royd Moor Road -
the landmark which seemed so full of majesty
when viewed from my bedroom window as a child
But now I pass them in haste
South to the bypass then turning North

Beyond Badsworth is Upton Beacon
relic of a now bygone age
when fires warned of Vikings in the Humber -
part of a fiery chain of beacons bright,
but modern telegraph wires are more efficient
and so they ought to be, encroaching
upon the landscape as they do, but they serve a
good purpose

More often though I left Upton alone
and followed the road through Thorpe
past the Kennels and down the steep descent
to perhaps the most prettiest village
in the whole of South Yorks.
now quiet and free
No lorries churn through Wentbridge now
It is good
for its beauty can be enjoyed
standing in safety on the bridge
watching the Went flow swiftly on its way to the
Don
not so clear and sparkling as it once was
but serene and quiet
unpretentiously offering its unmitigated beauty

I never did get as far as Smeaton
My eastern limit was the Great North Road
(Great is not my adjective)
now spanning the Went on a slender
tall, and even beautifully flowing, viaduct -
a symbol of modern progress
the Age of Road Transport, the Civil Engineer, the
Bridge-builder
It is a symbol to me too
but a sad one
It is the symbol of an exit
a flight Northwards
away from my childhood
to where I must go
to 'fulfill myself'

I have left home and gone away
Returning for holidays is not the same
for always I must
leave again
and then in a lorry or a car or whatever lift I
hitch
I must pass over
that viaduct
spanning the river of my childhood

Ironically
the best view of the river Went
the best that is known to me
is from the top of that viaduct -
the Went Valley Viaduct
five miles from the motorway
and five from Ferrybridge
But who stops ?
How many know that view ?
One in a thousand
of the drivers who pass it in haste ?

I know of it
I shall never forget
It is the river of my childhood
I know of it
I shall never forget
That is all that matters

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Glasgow, 11th January 1967

Publications

1967 Pontefract & Castleford Express (UK)
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)

Recollections - November 5th

RECOLLECTIONS: NOVEMBER 5th 1966

It was just the other day.
Bonfire night the fifth of November.
I went down myself
to where the suburb children
had built their bonfire
and as I watched the effigy
slowly being burnt,
I thought to myself I ought not to be here -
it is a Yorkshireman whom they burn.

My thoughts floated back
to the little close in Petergate
where in 1570
in the Church of St. Michael-le-Belfry
behind the great Minster of York,
Guy Fawkes was baptised.
And as a rocket shot out of a one-pint milk-bottle,
shooting high over tenement roofs,
I thought I ought not to be here -
it is a Yorkshireman whom they burn.

My thoughts escaped
to the Old Hall at Scotton
where Guy's childhood was spent.
There, in those rooms, did he plot
with the Brothers Wright?
And I thought of their home,
Ploughland, on the Spurn Road
where Holderness cocks a snoot at the sea.
Just then they lit some Roman candles
and the explosion of a banger
woke me and arrested my thoughts.
Then I remembered, I ought not to be here -
it is a Yorkshireman whom they burn.

My thoughts escaped once more;
down South to Kettering and Newton Hall
where met the unlucky thirteen,
six Yorkshiremen and seven others,
to plan the annihilation of King and Parliament for ever,
with thirty-two hundredweight of powder.
And as the bonfire cast shadows on the ground
I remembered I ought not to be here -
it is a Yorkshireman whom they burn.

Oh how I pictured,
as the body on the fire
began to disintegrate in the flames,
the sufferings felt by Guy
as he neither lay nor sat nor stood
in the Cell of Little Ease until,
on the 31st day of January
in the year sixteen hundred and six,
he was executed,
hung, drawn and quartered.
I knew  as I watched the dying embers of the fire,
I ought not to be here -
it is a Yorkshireman whom they burn.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed, Glasgow, 6th November 1966

Publications
1967 Pontefract & Castleford Express (UK)
2006 Ackworth born, gone West (Internet)
2008 York Daily Photo (Internet)