OLD HILL TRACK

by Peter Gillott.

Where leads the track untrampled now
past weathered cromlech, camp and barrow,
the land is tossed by keel of plough
and calmed by rusty comb of harrow.

I see gigantic shadows sweep
and rushing floods of sunlight follow
on nurseries of grazing sheep -
the bosom hill and cradle hollow.

I hear on embryos of wheat
delight of larks no joy surpasses,
and round about my questing feet
the broad wind singing through the grasses.

I feel the heart-beat of this land
whose ancient loveliness still lingers.
I take the good soil in my hand
and England dwindles through my fingers.

SONNY AT ARNOS VALE

by Marilyn Francis

On your third Wednesday,
a deceitful day of electric blue and acid green,
of honeyed sun, and spiteful breeze,

we took our first outing.
You slept wrapped in wool,
buzzing like a too-early bumble bee.

You didn't see angels guarding
the tombs, couldn't read the birthdays
and deathdays carved in the gravestones.

We read them. Those silverfish memories.
They shivered through us like a sudden
slice of March wind.

THE HOUSE IN MICKLEFIELD WOODS

by Clive Whitelock

This is where Mrs.Whitbread once dwelt.
None of us knew or cared how she felt
about council-house children with brash know-all ways
who would whither before her Victorian gaze.

Past hints and whispers are all that remain
of that tumbled-down terrace, yet, the air still retains
all that is needed to summon the ghost
of her dignified mien in the wake of our boasts
of the prowess we had in things boyishly vague;
she gave us the work, we did not renege.

We'd chew on raw rhubarb if that were our pay
and act with bravado to hide our dismay.
We'd smoke the odd Woodbine, we'd cherish the shilling,
but we would get nothing if we were not willing
to be more than children with nothing to do,
she knew in the old we'd discover the new.

She was the queen in her palace of bits,
no gas, no electric, no water though it
was found in the garden, a bottomless well,
an echoing hole which led straight to hell,
while we stood well away amidst hollyhock hoards.
Punishments, banishments, treats and rewards
were how she controlled us, kept us in thrall,
we council-house kids, we brash know-it-alls.

For comfort she had just the one fusty room
where she sat by the range in the eye-reddening gloom.
By her pantry a dark and cramped winding stair
led to her bedroom, its chill mote-flecked air
knew all her secrets and kept them all safe
from jackdaws and devils, tinkers and waifs.

But now all is gone save for rubbish and weeds,
the houses crept closer but did not succeed
in completing their trespass though they did all they could
to destroy the old haven in Micklefield woods.

GASWORKS ROW REMEMBERED

by C. J. White

Lowry might have sketched this scene of urban squalor in between
The suburbs and the heart of town, a grimy place of ill-renown.
Gaunt figures in the morn prepare to face the district's noisome air,
Or face the lonely house-bound hours, beneath the gasworks toxic showers.

The massive holders rise and fall, responding to the users'call
For town gas made from fossil fuel, the yield of some primeval pool.
Condenser,scrubbers, tall retorts perform an alchemy of sorts,
For some this is a great success, for other - blight without redress.

Hard by this maze of tube and drum exists the unmade road and slum.
A terraced row of spalled red brick, the grey slate roofs and windows thick
With fallen soot and acid steam, an avatar of man's worst dream.
Enduring all the dirt and smell, the hapless live in this man-made hell.

Along the road a sullen man, kicks an empty soft drinks can.
Somebody's dog comes to dispute and feels a weighty hob-nailed boot.
Through unwashed glass a woman stares, but no one chides, for no one cares.
Clear in my mind yet still I see, that place of abject poverty.

The gasworks and the row were cleared and in their place at length appeared
Successive streets of high-rise flats, conceived by local bureaucrats.
And though a question of extent, the concrete squalor's evident;
For having bull-dozed one disgrace, they built another in its place.

LINES AT INVERORAN

by Dr. Geoffrey Tapper

'You're no longer trim and twenty.'
'No,' said Bill, 'I'm plump and plenty,
Largo, melting into lenti.
Ah! The days of slim and slender!'
'Hush!' said Brenda, soft and tender,
'Credit to your age and gender;
Gaunt you're not, but hugh with splendour.'

Puffed with pride he was, and preening,
Governed by desire for greening.
'What is green?' asked Bill of Brenda,
'Grass,' she cried, 'all flesh is grass.
Pride and pleasure swiftly pass.
Now seen darkly in the glass,
Then in brilliance, face to face.
Knowledge is vouchsafed to few:
Ours to serve at steady pace,
Introit, Offertory, Grace.'

Up the track they climbed and knew
Nothing but the vaulting view.

SUNSET

by G. W. Beagle

That summer break's last chance - we sought the sea
And happened on a sparsely peopled shore,
Whereat our ten year old, spontaneously,
Without the slightest inhibition, tore
Off her clothes, to greet the waves as free
And innocent as Eve of what she wore.
Then as she turned with laughter on her lips
I saw the coming year would add to her
First hint of changing form at chest and hips
And knew how transient those moments were:
As when the sun beneath the ocean dips
That glorious sky, unique, cannot recur.
A perfect evening is no time for sadness;
The dawn will prove a novel source of gladness.

THAT TUESDAY

by Paul Hooley

Where was God That Tuesday?
He wasn't on the plane
And some whose need provoked the deed
Said they did it in his name.

Where was God That Tuesday?
He wasn't at the tower
As horror followed horror
In New York's darkest hour.

And where was God That Tuesday
As the flag of hate unfurled?
And acts of war not seen before
So horrified the world.

I saw God That Tuesday
He was on another plane
A horror ride where heroes died
Was he there to ease their pain?

They gave their lives That Tuesday
All human rights they waived
As once God's Son himself had done
So others might be saved.

I saw love That Tuesday
That terror could not stop
In a banker and a fireman
And a NYPD cop.

Souls took wing That Tuesday
Across the vast unknown
Departing Hell 'The Passing Bell'
Tolled the flight of no return.

The policeman and the fireman
Fear driven from their eyes
Like phoenix from the ashes
Guided others through the skies.

It wasn't Armageddon
And their journey wasn't late
And He was there That Tuesday
At the arrivals gate.

The fireman and the policeman
As shepherds with a rod
That Tueday led the innocents
To shake the hand of God.