Far Too Good For The Likes Of You
This is the last of my little series on East Anglia,
& for this one we travel to the spiritual heartland.
A place I consider so sublimely beautiful
I’m not telling you where it is.
(If I told you, the carloads of tourists & yuppies
would spoil it for ever.)
It’s a B road somewhere in the middle of Suffolk
& like most roads it goes from one place to another.
One end of it sort of goes into a village that
makes you think something bigger is coming, but then
it peters out again into nothing: that’s exactly
the place I mean.
As you drive round the corner, a line of broken-down
old shacks struggle up the hillside in various states
of decay.
Chickens roost in Ford Popular carcasses & old harmoniums.
A solitary Highland Bull chews the cud, in a field
on its own.
Old, rusting seed drills hang around in fragments
& there’s a Bedford van chassis with an attempt at
a caravan on top that was never finished.
Down the hill is the river, & up the hill is a
wood full of bluebells. Literally full of them.
You can go up there with people and commit adultery
on Nature’s carpet of royal blue, a gorgeous sensation
‘cos bluebells sort of squeak when you crush them.
On the other side of the road is another hill,
completely bare except for an old tree stump.
You can sit there on windy days reading Gothic
horror novels with the wind howling about your ears.
Then there’s a pillbox down by the river full
of cow shit. (God knows how the cows get in there.)
There’s nothing for miles, north & south.
Not much to the west & east either, unless you
want a long walk. If you ever go there, take
a bag with you & pick some blackberries -
they make the best home brew in the world.
So I’m not telling you where it is; it’s
far too good for the likes of you.
Page(s) 13
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The