Category: Places

Desert Island Diss

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on the beach

Desert Island Diss

Eight songs ?  Just eight songs ?
Then how will I even survive ?
Eight thousand is nearer the mark
To keep my spirits alive.

Eight song played back-to-back
That’s half-an-hour-ish, tops.
Just half-an-hour of paradise
Until salvation stops.

Washed ashore with a gramophone –
The wind-up kind, I’m guessing.
You’ll need a bigger bribe than that
To get me to confessing.

It always sounds such agony,
This torpid, tropical clime –
I’ll take the grimy, busy rain
Of cities ev’ry time.

There’s Bill and the Bible, as well, of course,
So that’s the loo-roll sorted,
But for my pick of luxury,
I’d like to be deported.

Eight songs ?  Just eight songs ?
Is that all you’ll allow ?
If music is so rare and cruel,
I beg, please drown me now…

Berlingo

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several gift cards
Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com on Pexels.com

Berlingo

Berlin – City of the english Language,
All Thanks to Hollywood and Touristdollars –
With bilingual Signs to ease our Angst and Anguish,
And fluent Secondtonguers and subconscious Scholars.
From Burntborough Square to Prince Elector Way
Welcome to Berlinnington-on-Spray.

White Rose, Red Leicester

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tomb

White Rose, Red Leicester

A long-dead king has gained a sponsor,
As he gets re-buried in state
A tyrant, if not quite the monster
That the Tudors would create.

But wait –
We’re missing the beauty here,
Amid the pomp and lack of debate:
It’s not in the marble, or toady veneer,
In a minster of the second rate.

So a long-lost king was dug out of the ground –
So what ?
But how do we know whose bones we’ve found
Despite long centuries years of rot ?
That is the beauty we’re missing, I say –
The beauty of DNA !

It shows us just who’s our forebear or grandson –
And surely that’s all worth a king’s ransom !
And where were such secrets first teased from their source ?
Why, right here in Leicester, of course !

Talk Like a Pirate

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Long John Silver
Long John Silver by Robert Ingpen

Talk Like a Pirate

“Ever since Robert Newton played Long John Silver in 1950, pirates have all spoken with the same accent.”

– The Dorchester Echo

Curse ye, Robbie Newton !
Curse yer lily-lubbered hide !
For thanks to ye, all pirates be
The yokels o’ the crimson sea !
We used-a hail from Luton,
Or Nidderdale, or Morningside –
But now it’s said we’re born an’ bred
In Lynmouth, Lyme an’ Lizard Head.

From the Needle to the Scilly,
Round the Bill and up Goonhilly,
Fowey to Zoyland, thar we blow
From Durdle Door to Westward Ho !

Ye scurvy-livered, timber-shivered blaggard, Robbie Newton !
Ye turned us to a joke, to a’ the folk that we be lootin’ !
Ye’d have us be a parody o’ bushy-bearded mutiny,
A pantomime upon the sea, jus’ pussycats freebootin’ –
We should be briny soldiers, but who could fear our bands
Wi’ these parrots on our shoulders and these hooks upon our hands ?
Ye’ve decked us in a strange disguise, wi’ peggy-leg an’ lock-o’-dread,
An’ always wi’ the patchy-eyes fore’er a-lookin’ ’skance.
We used-a be the buccaneers o’ Buckin’ham an’ Birkenhead,
But now we’re jus’ the poxy-pillaged pirates o’ Penzance.

From Portishead to Plymouth Hoe,
We’ll drag yer name to ten below.
From Brizzle Dock to Davey Jones,
We curse your skull an’ cross your bones !

The Daphne Shanty

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parrot
Jewel of the Amazon by Stephen Jesic

The Daphne Shanty

One man drifts upon a door –
Too far from home, too far from shore,
Without supplies, without an oar.
Or so I’ve heard it told.
Both he and raft, three days ago,
Were languishing upon the deck –
Now all the rest are ten below,
Yet he by chance has fled the wreck.
Instead, he gets to starve and stare
At water, water ev’rywhere !
Beneath the fierce, unflinching skies,
He waits his death and hungry flies –
When shadows cross his salt-caked eyes…
A figurehead in gold !

So weigh the anchor, hitch the stay,
We’ll blow you back to yesterday –
We’re all adrift and outwards bound,
An island’s waiting to be found.
So dance with the carambola,
By the fair isola of the giorno prima,
Ev’ry newborn gleamer.

One man drifts below a prow
Too far from home – but safer now,
If he can only climb somehow…
And so our yarn sets sail.
Up top, he finds no sign of life,
Yet down below are cages crammed
With birds, and beasts, and flowers rife:
 As live as he, and just as damned.
A hold here to behold !  All brought
From out the land he sees to port.
But where are they who stocked this store ?
If only he could swim ashore,
To the island of the day before…
Ah, therein hangs a tale…

So drop the anchor, be becalmed,
We’re porpoised, parroted and palmed
In paradise, in distant climes
A long long way from Greenwich times.
So dance with the mola mola,
By the lost isola of the giorno prima,
Ev’ry shipworn dreamer.

This is based on the opening of Umberto Eco’s novel.

The Rover

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spring east
Spring East by Tony Lombardo

The Rover

If you find England is too small, my dear,
Then jump on my boat and I’ll sail you from here !
I’ll sail you to Russia, I’ll sail you to Spain,
I’ll sail you away from her beer and her rain.
But if in a day or a month or a year
You find that you’re missing her rain and her beer,
Well, I won’t be there, dear, to sail you back home –
For I’ll be in Oslo or Cairo or Rome.

Hounslow Fast & Hounslow Slow

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hounslow
Early 20th Century views of Hounslow High Street

Hounslow Fast & Hounslow Slow

All the stages came through Hounslow,
All the coaches heading West –
Driving on to Bath and Plymouth,
Coming back in need of rest.
All the coaches stopped at Hounslow,
At the Bell or Rose & Crown –
For stretching legs and changing horses
For the final push to town.

They all knew Hounslow then –
The drovers, grooms and highwaymen.
But nothing stays the same –
And so one day the railway came.

Only three miles north of Hounslow,
Yet those three miles meant a lot –
Steaming on to Slough and Reading,
Faster than a horse can trot.
All the West once came through Hounslow,
Then the bypass passed you by –
And little mark is left to show
From when this High Street lived so high.

We all know Hounslow now –
A long way from a horse or cow,
Beneath where aircraft fly –
And like the trains, they pass you by.

Where the Hounds Lie Low

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dogs

Where the Hounds Lie Low

All dogs come to Hounslow:
The Saxon mound of all the hounds,
From far and near, they gather here
Where no-one herds them into pounds.

You’ll find all breeds in Hounslow:
From native bulldogs, collies, setters,
Goldies, skyes, of ev’ry size,
A mix of strays and game go-getters.

Exotics, too, in Hounslow:
Poodles, spitz and borzoi breeds.
Dalmatians, pomeranians –
They’re free of collars, free of leads.

A thousand woofs in Hounslow,
And coats of ev’ry length and hue:
From lab to husky, pale or dusky –
Snouts and builds are varied, too.

They all feel safe in Hounslow:
The afghans, dingos and pariahs –
They fear no more the dogs of war,
And tails are safe from dockers’ pliers.

All dogs are free in Hounslow,
Where jack russell and king charles meet,
With great danes cheek by jowl with pekes,
And mutts and corgis share the street.

A better life in Hounslow,
Where they’re at peace to chase their sticks.
All dogs, they say, shall have their day
To raise the pups and learn new tricks.

All dogs come to Hounslow,
The mound where hounds find all they need –
And from each guest we’ll gain their best
To raise a stronger, mongrel breed.

The Talk of far-off Forums

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top view photography of buildings and trees beside large body of water
Photo by Chedi Tanabene on Pexels.com

The Talk of far-off Forums

Some cities were built on solid rock,
Some cities were built on marsh,
Some cities were built on shifting sands,
Or fault-lines sleeping in filigree strands –
And some cities brought their own earthshock
By building themselves in wilderness harsh,
Or building themselves on the very lands
That other tribes sought in their conquering hands.
But no matter how long ago,
And no matter how brute their overthrow,
And no matter how the northwinds blow –
Not all their dust shall dissipate
Upon the breezes’ sarabands –
For all a city’s kiss-of-fate,
A glimpse remains, a trace withstands.
Through their footings bared and carvings old,
Through their buried pot and coins of gold,
And through their ev’ry mention in the tellers’ tales still told.

Some cities were held in high esteem,
Some cities were held in spite,
Some cities were held as shining states
To journeymen seeking their golden gates –
And some cities gave a lustrous gleam
That prophets implored their gods to smite,
That preachers condemned with envious hates
As other men praised for their glorious freights.
Ambition or apocalypse,
Each name upon their distant lips
As the place where sin and fortune grips –
The place, the home of orgies grand,
The nest of countless sirens’ baits,
Where ev’ry taste it shall command,
As ev’ry thirst it satiates.
Through their legends past and heroes bold,
Through their poets’ songs and glamours sold,
And still their very mention breathes them life that we behold.