On savage nights when North-easterly gales blew
Your villagers crouched
In the sand dunes here Waiting for ships to be wrecked
Off Winterton Ness.
Your land was enclosed And turned into pasture for
Thomas Thursby's sheep.
Eternal Norfolk: Somerton; Winterton; Green Fall
and Springfields.
Switch off your mobile And come walking here; learn to
Be unreachable.
I have gone to ground Now - like Hereward the Wake -
Under the reed-heads.
It all began here Thirty years ago;
driving Home that night up the
Dark lane: that sudden Vision in the
car’s headlights Of a world long gone
Or of a world yet To come – or maybe
just the Jolt of poetry
Arriving here so Suddenly like the
moon’s face From behind a cloud.
Time is becoming A scarse commodity now; Its share
price rising.
On winter nights on Wensum Street - I meet the ghosts
Of my former self.
Eventually We are all drawn back to the Ageless,
boundless sea.
Some days I walk the Criss-cross trails here and let
The heath heal me.
Out on the eery Echoing, dead-flat marshes I come
back to life.
Petulengro said: 'Life is very sweet brother; Who
would wish to die?'
Halfway through my life I awoke to find myself In a
dark forest.
What happened to you All those years ago - and why
Are you still hurting?
There is no where else But here - so relish now all
The time you have left.
On kingfisher days I retain your blue ember In my
mind's eye.
Through the middle of The city - you quietly Wind
some and wend some.
Stop your writing now; Embrace, like Sibelius, The
sound of silence.
No hymns; no sermons; No voice of God; only the
Unbroken silence.
Let the sea cleanse work's Filthy flotsam and jetsam
From your mind's tideline.
Log off; sign out; switch Off; escape now into these
Reed-fringed backwaters.
Easton
Inside: the endless Powerpoint. Outside: the rooks
Flapping over fields.
Reedham
One day I will pay The ferryman; let him take Me
to the dead land.
Trawl now through the dark Recesses of your mind for
A single bright thought.
Just before the sea Reached me - I was demolished
And taken away.
Out there under the Waves - with your cottages and
Sunken church tower.
Bathe in the yellow Light; inhale the heady scent;
Remember summer.
Twice a day the sea Writes a love poem on the beach
And then deletes it.
Retreat now into Old Norfolk: let the sluggish
Waters absolve you.
I plough old furows Repeatedly - turning up
Fragments of Norfolk.
Skull-shaped, sea-bitten, Wide-skied, church-towered,
unkempt; Older than England.
No enlightenment; No redemption - but rather
Darkness visible.
Listen for the roar Of returning bombers; count
Them back in: one, two......
Take the antidote: Take it now; let it reach deep
Into the poison.
A sudden breeze off Breydon turns you into a Wild,
whispering sea.
Deeper and darker Than anyone would allow: Deeper
and darker.
Your blue dressmaker's Scissors rip through the fabric
Of the riverside.
The floodwater has Dispersed; settle back into Your
proper channel.
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