More poems of mine in _The punch_

I explained, when blogging an earlier appearance of poems by me in The punch, that this online Indian magazine, with a poetry issue once a year, has no connection with the London-based humour magazine of past centuries. My new appearance there was on 19 October last.

'As we were' was written in November 2018, when I was working my way through Jo Bell's 52: write a poem a week. Start now. Keep going. Prompt 50 in the 52 book was for a poem about violence. It begins with a quote within a quote.

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AS WE WERE

"'Fight to uphold it, it's the status quo!'

When I taught, boys defended the career

they'd planned themselves in the armed forces so.

We're here because we're here because we're here."

Newspaper letter, 1982.

Read over someone's shoulder, to my shame,

Stoke Newington, the 73 bus queue.

And then I recognised the writer's name.

Thought of his teaching, and how he hauled one

boy by the hair or ear out from his place,

asked him I forget what. We all looked on.

Each answer got a punch in the boy's face.

Perhaps two teachers shared the name. I'll not

fuss joining dot to thirteen-year-off dot.

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'Beacon Hill' was a response to another prompting from Jo Bell. During Lockdown 2, in November 2020, she led an online poetry workshop called 'Try to praise the mutilated world'. This time, the prompts were for a poem a day! They ran for the four weeks of lockdown, with a 29th and final prompt on Christmas Day.

Participants were invited to post their poems to a closed Facebook group. I succeeded in making something of all the first 28 prompts, albeit over 6 weeks rather than 4.

The first prompt was for poems on the subject of fire. Jo's blog as a whole is at http://jobell.org.uk/ . But 'Try to praise the mutilated world' seems to be now represented there only by the post announcing its launch, and individual prompts have disappeared.

My response to the fire prompt was a poem about Beacon Hill, an
earthwork at the eastern end of the village where I grew up, Gringley
on the Hill, in Nottinghamshire. When I posted it, the setting was
recognised at once by another group member, Seth Crook, who'd spent
holidays in the village as a boy and accounted Beacon Hill one of his
favourite places.

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BEACON HILL

Those towers twenty miles away -- you claim
as I see them they must have seen your flame.
Right. But these towers fifty miles away.

You don’t need them. You had your glory day
when the message was flared across the Trent
in the great Armada alert they sent
nationwide. More than I’ve done, ever. That
should do you. Embroidered, it’s all tat.
You're an earthwork to hold fires on your top.
No, not a volcano either. Stop.

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'Chichester 950' was penned on Clare's and my bike tour in the summer of 2025. We rode west from Brighton along the south coast, and took a ferry to the Isle of Wight. One of the places we passed through was Chichester, where the cathedral was marking its 950th anniversary.

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CHICHESTER 950

The signs advise entry by the west door 

that's round the campanile to its north.

We walk the church's length in West Street, for 

the city's grid names keep their ancient worth.

My bearings flip cathedrals, see them lie

anti-parallel to most parish churches.

Not here. The tower stands into the sky

per childhood graveyards. How soon done the search is!

Evensong, then the conflict-ridden timeline:

the spire's collapse in 1861

and the abuses later come to light.

We walk the city walls. Scott's spire design,

louvreless windows open to the sun

and space. They're still an unexpected sight.

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'Entitled' is another from 2020. It was my entry in a Holland Park Press competition on the theme of royalty, the deadline being King's Day in Holland.

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ENTITLED

The stately-home guide said the take technique
brought to a fine art by the late Queen Mary –
praise it till it’s a gift – was deemed such cheek
the Firm warned hosts of this through an equerry.

And did they warn Queen Mary? Truth to power?
Power’s excuse is Weak, hide your temptations!
I cannot help myself as I devour.
It is my gift to eat the wealth of nations.

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'Gurney' was written, like a number of my poems, for entry in the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association competition. The theme was 'Exile'. Do I need to explain that Will, in the first stanza, is F.W. Harvey, and Jack, in the second, is C.S. Lewis?

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GURNEY

1916-1917: Ivor Gurney made a song of F.W. Harvey's 'In Flanders'.

From Flanders' huge low prison Will

looked back to years above the war,

homesick for high, and blue, and hill,

kings' cloudlands of the time before.

1913-1914: the Gurney Library sheltered C.S. Lewis from Malvern College.

Malvern Hills healed Jack's England pain;

but a fagged, flogged newbie (the day

stung forty years), again, again,

he begged father take him away.