Jennifer Johnson
Escape
Last Sunday I drove miles to escape
my home built from bricks of debt,
from the job that stops it falling down.
Two hours later I reached Alfriston,
a place I would have loved as a child
when all I saw were surfaces.
I came to find some sort of peace
among half-timbered pubs,
the medieval church, the village green
but interiors were disappointing:
insipid piped music in the pub,
a chilling dampness in the church.
Only when I got back to Hayes
did I breathe easily
despite huge chimneys
industriously pushing steam
into the air: its whiteness
a foil to grey clouds above.
Ugliness is on display here,
the only beauty that of the silks
worn by Asian women who walk
their brilliance past empty shops,
smashed up bus shelters,
peeling art-deco factories.
The Downs dominate Alfriston:
here it's 'Nestlé', 'Tarmac'
and a scrap yard full of cars
and cafés full of chatter:
cheerful people, with no escape,
making the best of things.
my home built from bricks of debt,
from the job that stops it falling down.
Two hours later I reached Alfriston,
a place I would have loved as a child
when all I saw were surfaces.
I came to find some sort of peace
among half-timbered pubs,
the medieval church, the village green
but interiors were disappointing:
insipid piped music in the pub,
a chilling dampness in the church.
Only when I got back to Hayes
did I breathe easily
despite huge chimneys
industriously pushing steam
into the air: its whiteness
a foil to grey clouds above.
Ugliness is on display here,
the only beauty that of the silks
worn by Asian women who walk
their brilliance past empty shops,
smashed up bus shelters,
peeling art-deco factories.
The Downs dominate Alfriston:
here it's 'Nestlé', 'Tarmac'
and a scrap yard full of cars
and cafés full of chatter:
cheerful people, with no escape,
making the best of things.
Page(s) 20-21
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Lamport Court
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- Matter
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- Monkey Kettle
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
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- 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