I remember Sunday afternoons And watching classic black-and-whites, Though not so much for giant apes, Or top hats, kanes, or men in tights – But all my fascination fell On the opening seconds-worth, Wond’ring at that giant mast, And where its feet made earth – Novaya Zemlya first, for one, And Svalbard, I concluded, next, Then Ellesmere Island for the third, But the last one had me vexed… There’s nothing there but shifting ice, Though far more then than left today – It’s just as well they’d long gone bust Before the ice gave way.
Frost fairs upon the Thames, they never happen these days – Snow just once or twice a year is all we get round here. Curses to the Gulf Stream, damn your warming ways ! Snow just once or twice a year, and Spring is always near. And it’s shut down the town again, It’s shut down the town, my dear, Shut down the trains and the drains and the pier.
Nobody is ever ready when it comes a-falling, Never dressed for proper cold in proper Winter gear. Nobody is ever ready when the snow is balling, Before they’ve even had a fight, the flurries disappear. And it’s back to the rain again, It’s back to the rain, my dear, Back to the grey – and it’s here to stay, I fear.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rhyming Couplets 