Category: Places

Naymington-on-Poynte

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Sheffield Fingerpost Signs by Leander Architectural

Naymington-on-Poynte

Dark Age place-names,
Leave-a-trace names,
Honestly-describe-the-space names:
Bearing no hyperbole,
They simply stated verbally
What ev’rybody thought the place was,
Giving not a thought to status.

And so we find throughout the nation
Sagebrush prison, Pighill station,
Goatranch airport, Crowfilledwood,
Watertown of the Sisterhood,
Snotti’s Homestead, Northern Trading,
Ladies’ Landing, Stags-are-Wading,
Cheesefarm Green and Hillhill Hill –
Names most Super-Mare and Brill.

But names can be the falsest friend:
Like Middlesex and Lickey End,
Or Swansea, Inkpen, Kentish Town,
The many heights of Lower Down,
Or Upper Slaughter, East Kilbride.
Or Leatherhead and Barkingside.
Nether Wallop, Ugley, Beer,
Towcester, Staines and Wigan Pier

But meanings can survive intact,
As more Bridgnorth than Pontefract:
With Sevenoaks, we safely stand,
And Newport, Battle, Westmorland.
There’s Mill Hill, Highgate, Firbank Fells,
The Mousehole Caves, and Bath, and Wells.
The Otter river is no riddle,
Unlike, say, the Ouse or Piddle.

And if I claimed I knew a place
Called Kismeke Wick or Running Chase,
Or Buttermouth, or Chattering,
Or Shepherds Peak and Hattersing,
Or Owland Buzzard, Wethergale,
Or Buxham Hills and Settingsale,
Or Swallow Spit, or Barnet Shears ?
Would you believe your English ears ?

Et In Orcadia, Ego

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Antonine Wall by Miguel Coimbra

Et In Orcadia, Ego

Did the Romans ever make it over Antoninus ?
Did their legions hike the Highlands, past the cirsium and pinus ?
Did they meet his high-king highness,
In his fiery hair and golden torc ?
And did they think this seaside-caesar woaded-rogue or hawkish-ork ?
So did the Fleet Agricolan heave-to in Scapa Flow ?
The orcas and the auks go by, but they don’t know.

Chrissie Cards

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Chrissie Cards

Koala bears in woolly hats,
Emus strutting in the snow
Spruces march across the Outback –
Let it go, Oz, let it go…
I know you’re mostly immigrants
From colder, Northern climes,
But not all cult’ral heritage
Will work in modern times.
Ditch the chimney for a combi,
Lose the furry robes and gloves,
Let the gum replace the holly,
Let the budgies play the doves.
Embrace your new contrariness,
Your world turned upside down –
This Winter masquerade is not
The only game in town.
Santa chilling by the barbie,
Kangaroos to haul the sleigh,
Redback’s guarding Baby Jesus –
Season’s greetings, and g’day.

Traps

~ Toastingfork ~ 2 Comments
DSC_5185 by Iwtt93

Traps

The books call this an igneous province,
As if a country of lava –
They also call these rocks an intrusion,
So more of an empire, rather.
But due to the terraces up the plateau,
They mostly call them traps –
Like a very slow escalator,
Till the warring flanks collapse.
Or are they prisoners to their nature,
Locked beneath the land ?
Heaving, layering, underpinning,
Mountains raised from sand –
Pushing-up from underneath
By stealth or by explosion,
To reinforce the battle
With the forces of erosion.
The books call these the flood basalts
That roll across the shield
Unstoppable, a stony horde
That sweep the battlefield.

Outpost

~ Toastingfork ~ 3 Comments
Art by Vitaly Glovatsky (I am unable to discover its title)

Outpost 

Out here, we see them all come by,
All those that come this way, that is –
The trails round here are sparsely-spread,
And we are kind-of hard to miss.
There may be horses, may be camels,
Or shanks’ ponies – all depends –
And dogs, who have to earn their keep
As guards or hunters, or as friends.
There’s a wall to offer shelter,
Because winds and tigers can’t be tamed –
And then there are the soldiers,
For even barren parts are claimed.
So is it lonely ?  Not as lonely
As the eagles overhead –
And all will come this way in time,
There’s nowhere else to go instead.

Dune

~ Toastingfork ~ 3 Comments
Speechless by Dave Platford

Dune

The desert is a beach
That has never known the sea,
A desiccated ocean
Where the bed has broken free,
A long-abandoned ruin
Where the rainclouds never play,
A once-abundant jungle
Where the trees have drained away.
The heat above, the cold below,
The sand will flood, the sand will flow,
And the waves are high, but the tide is slow,
And the haze is a shimmering spray.

America, We Need to Talk

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
It’s Time to Build a Stronger America by James Flagg

America, We Need to Talk

Look, we get it, you’re still young and brash
With passion and guile of a sort we remember
From out of our youth, from cutting a dash,
When the world was in Spring and our credit in cash,
And watching you now, we still feel an ember
From deep in our hearts that we thought were but ash.

For we are the empires who strutted before you,
Who drank the same honeydew now on your lips –
With vassals and tributes to praise and adore you,
And patience and prudence to hassle and bore you,
So manifest destiny festers and grips –
And no wonder it finds you when none can ignore you.

We’ve all been there – we British and Roman,
We Persian and Aztec, we Mongol and French –
We each were as mighty, who answered to no man,
From horseback and gunboat, with longsword and bowman,
And bloodlust and mistrust we never could quench,
And the cripple’ing burden of being the showman.

It never quite goes away, of course,
As our never-set suns stop their beaming –
The memories built up in temples and wars
Which we cherish in secret, still keeping the scores.
The dreams we’re still dreaming at twilight’s last gleaming,
So some day shall all this be yours.

The Engineers’ Plot

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
penge palace
Gems of The Crystal Palace, Sydenham by George Baxter, showing off the designs of Joseph Paxton

The Engineers’ Plot

Crystal Palace – it’s a suburb,
Station, park, and football team,
And a memory to a time
When this nation still could dream.
Once a product of Empire,
A palace to capture its roar –
Now just a flat-topped hill
In the Republic of Elsinore.
Straddling boroughs, pumping fountains,
Soaring towers, glass for miles.
Till flames across eight counties
Shattered her dreamy crystal aisles.

She no more beguiles – but that sounds Victorian –
Half vers libre, half Tudor sonnet.
Flirting with jazz and television,
Yet still bedecked in her bustle and bonnet.
She was no Bauhaus, no mere function –
Cast iron crockets encrusted her shell –
For all her prefab industry,
She always wore her baubles well.
Ah, she’s gone now – like her dinosaurs,
She’s of her time and place.
Though her place of course is the one she named –
You cannot say she leaves no trace.

Circle Lines

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
city night architecture metro
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Circle Lines

I see the poems popping up again
Upon the Underground –
Prosy, earnest, and ignored
By all except the very bored.
They’re forced to slum it on the crowded train –
At least they get around,
But free from glottal-stops and grime,
And far too erudite to rhyme.
And yet, it does them good to mix where
Plain-spoke folk abound –
And tailor their delivery
To suit the Drain and Jubilee:

“Mind the gap please, mind the metaphors,
Next stop is Leicester Square,
Oh tyger tyger burning bright,
She walks in beauty like the night,
All-change for Euston, mind the doors,
Use Oyster for the cheapest fare,
Remember me when I am gone away,
The darling buds of May,
South Kensington for dinosaurs,
Beyond the spiral stair –
Early electric, to beat the queues –
Where is Skimble ? Men long for news.”

Horseguards

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
royal guard standing near lamp post
Photo by Samuel Wu00f6lfl on Pexels.com

Horseguards

Come on down to Whitehall,
To visit England’s pride –
Fine-dressed guards on horseback stand
Sentry either side.

Come on down to Whitehall,
These soldiers trained to kill
With milit’ry precision sit
Absolutely still.

Come on down to Whitehall,
At eleventh hour
Watch crack troops all moving at
The rate of one horse-power.

Come on down to Whitehall,
They don’t do things by halves –
Our household guards can both stand guard
And pose for photographs.