Category Archives: poems of place

Dr Samuel Johnson Wants a Word with You

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Poems of Place: At Dr. Johnson’s House, Gough Square

First words, last words. 

Old words, new words. 

Buzzwords, adwords

Few words, lost-for-words words.

Sounds like Wordsworth

Sounds like wordplay.

Bonded words, fighting words 

Weasel words, F words, 

Upon my word!

A thousand words,

In a war of words 

I’m lost for words.

Word of the law, word of the Lord

Words in edgeways, words in ears

Word of mouth, word of mum

Spoken in jest, heard on street

Mark my words, then mince my words,

And if words fail me!

I’ll eat my words 

Famous Last Words….

Johnson was not a man of few words….

Samuel Johnson’s House of Words is the world’s only museum that celebrates the power of words and their defining role in creating the language of humanity. http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org

Come, Take My Hand

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For T&C: The bravest of the brave

Come, take my hand, stir fading memories,
The canvass of life is now ripped.
Come, speak my lines, prompt doubtful recall,
I’m lost and missing the script.

Come, trace my past, trawl special moments,
The passage of time is now dark,
Come, touch these lips, thaw frozen feelings,
Help me to find the lost spark.

Come, sit with me, replay our movie,
Time-shift the end to the start.
Come wipe our tears, and remember
I’ll always be here in your heart.

March 22nd, 2021

Ghosts*

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Poems of Place: Enfield, CT

Somewhere in New England in the gunpowder hills where CT becomes MA, 

There’s a shed that’s strewn with arms and legs, torsos and trunks,

And here and there, you’ll see outstretched arms and palms in supplication, 

Motionless like stone-cold victims of Vesuvius now seen at Herculaneum.

Somewhere in New England not far from the Lego house the Danes built,

Vans bought the sewing tables from a hundred shops which may have sweated once,

But now stand silently, awaiting alterations. 

But the orders will not come. COVID makes blazers and flannels superfluous.

Somewhere in New England not far from Stop and Shop

You’ll find a silent forest of tinsel which once be-decked the halls of mansions like Madison,

Which now are but a dream of Christmases past and stand in gloom

Behind the random cabaret tables which the held neckties, bow ties or pocket squares 

Monogrammed with Golden Fleeces, the badge of presidential approval.

Before us, we contemplate a muster of mannequins, anti-socially distanced, lonely and unmasked:

They do not appear to be having a nice day. 

A picture containing indoor, ceiling, furniture Description automatically generated

*The Ghosts of Brooks Brothers 

After the retailer filed for bankruptcy, one couple was left with a warehouse full of abandoned mannequins ….

New York Times, April 2, 2021

The (Lonesome) Lockdown Blues

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

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Poems of Place: At Southridge, Horspath

Another day of staring blankly in this room?
Even my glass of rosé fails to lift the evening gloom
There’s been too little bandwidth and just too much Zoom,
I think I’ve got the lonesome lockdown blues…

Are you getting bored with all those virus metrics?
And there’s nothing left to watch on Amazon Prime or Netflix
My ennui extends to even You Tube’s pet tricks
I’ve just got the lonesome lockdown blues…

My iPod has just finished its final rotation
The playlist had too many songs of un-splendid isolation
But it’s time to lift the spirit of the Nation
Gotta get out…
Gotta get out…
Gotta get out of the lonesome lockdown blues!

 

NB Some chords could be used for the full lockdown experience:

Am Dm7 E7 G

Am Dm7 E7 G

Am G Dm7 E

Am E Dm7 Am
April 2020

Cynicus Historicus @Oxford and Yuste

23 Sunday Sep 2018

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I The Party at Brazenose

Poured house white from green bottle

Onto slaked lips

In the fizzle

Forgot the effects those

Sips would force

 

Liz and Pete

-Enthusiasts!

Danced like drunks in the rain

The bitter sweat of seduction

Increased the pain

I smiled –

But they looked rather mystified

At me

And my green shadow.

 

II Charles of Ghent

Charles of Ghent,

Dubbed by successive men

Of little wit and less sense,

Failure –

Sits in a parched glade at fifty

How pointless his struggle with

Valois, heretic and Turk seems

Compared to this

Unfathomable, but no less

Fundamental act.

 

New Inn Hall Street

Hilary, 1976

Poems of Place: 60611

14 Thursday Jun 2018

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When I think of you, I think of food:

That first steak – huge and bloody,

The chophouse brown ambience

Haunting the bridge;

The cheesy Wheel of Death

That defeated even Brian,

The Filet-O-Fish and fries we ate in Oak Brook and enjoyed,

The ribs we sucked and gnawed on Sheffield’s garden walk

The Fat Tires we swilled

To debrief and to decompress…

 

When I think of you, I see the Lake,

That seems not to be a lake,

Deep frozen, or mist-bound beyond the lighthouse

Arctic still even on dog-days.

I see my love braving the cold and

Apparently bound for Canada.

I remember late-night emails at the W,

Preparing for the deal that

Changed our lives for ever

 

When I think of you,

I see Lake Forest luxe

And Gold Coast widows,

The mid-western smiles,

The summer vibe

The caps and Cubs at Wrigley Field

The early morning chugging of the L

The forest of your architecture

And all that jazz;

I think of Wabash and the Wackers

The Magnificent mile

The palace of heels at Nordstrom

The smell of books at Powell’s

The shady avenues of the park,

The laughing with the friends we love,

I think of all these things you mean

And the moments you made for us,

Chicago.

 

June 13th, 2018

Poems of Place: At the M&S Café, Walsall

03 Sunday Jun 2018

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Poems of Place: At the M&S Café, Walsall

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Sitting amidst the rich and zingy,

Zesty feast of flavours that is

The Marks and Spencer Café,

I think of you and me.

 

And as I scan my ebbing latte’s tidal art

I think of places in this town, our town

Where post-school, we met

To court, hold hands and play.

 

I wrote you soppy poems,

Buttressed with pilfered fragments, yet in homage,

Treasured the hour before our haven closed

And the moment came to walk you to the ‘bus

 

Back in town today, ours – but not,

I’m close to where we sat and laughed

Not knowing nor imagining then,

The rich and zingy zesty love we’d share.

 

 June 2nd, 2018

 

 

Poems of Place: The Halt, 1967

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

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Revising on railway line, post Beeching Chris Sheffield c 1967 c Chris Davies (2)

 

Dr. Beeching arrives at Dr. Williams’ School in Dolgellau

Somewhere on the Mawddach, excavating

The sedimentary layers of my youth

I found your smile.

In sepia, framed transgressive

And lounging between

The empty parallels of stark infinity,

You spoke:

Confident, optimistic and open

Even at a point of closure.

Full of possibilities,

You signaled encouragement and hope

Amidst the dissolution,

And with that look, advertised

The essence of youth’s big adventure

Which fifty years later I savoured once more.

 

October 3, 2017

I am grateful to Jennie and colleagues at Dr Williams on the web for permission to feature the photograph from the website which inspired this poem.

Please discover more at http://www.dwsoga.org.uk

 

 

Poems of Place: At Shotover

10 Monday Jul 2017

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Inspired by the Fantasia On A Theme by Thomas Tallis: Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Sunlight scouts the forest’s weak points

And glints through dark birch parapets

Across the late morning,

This late Easter morning.

We came looking for hope,

To pause our dissertation on sadness and despair

For those we have lost;

To smell the Spring, all sweet and fecund;

To see the evidence of resurrection.

In the clearing, a process and a place today,

We hear that chord: strident, promising

Flattened and incomplete,

Then, from somewhere deep within the earth

The baseline heartbeat canon,

Which pulses strong again as if from nothing,

And shows we can indeed rise up from beds of death.

Then I see the bluebells, boisterous, on the march,

In rampant progress across the forest floor.

Thus re-connected to my optimistic self, I smile,

Past, present, future are in communion once more.

 

Easter Sunday, 2017

Poems of Place: Lunch with Tory

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

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abbaye-senanque2

We said it would be the Luberon,

Perhaps mid-September

When the crowds had left? Or mostly.

We’d find a table with a view:

Oppède Le Vieux, perhaps? Or better at Sénanque

In the hollow, amongst the purple

We’d drink Domaine Ott – barely pink, well chilled

But elegant like you

We’d banter with black olives

Or the tapenades with fig you liked

Then the smell of roast chicken would

Demand the group’s attention

And with it, we’d bring out salad leaves,

And beef tomatoes, the primed burrata.

After, some would contemplate the madelaines

And lavender honey ice creams lying in wait.

But then comforted and comfortable,

We’d pause and think of you –

And feel once more the warmth you brought.