Believe It Or Not

I am more at home

With Richard Long’s

White Deer Circle

Which fronts an expanse

Of grass, bordered by oaks

Of many years standing

This is an emblem

Of one man’s idea

Fashioned against

Another man’s idea

Several generations apart

Or so one is led to believe

On first impressions

The huge, upturned

Rooted tree stumps

Are placed, more or less

Where the village of Houghton

Once stood, that is until

Sir Robert Walpole

Had it moved a little further away

From his imposing Palladian mansion

Apparently

Or so others say

It is an uncanny echo

Of Seahenge, discovered

On a nearby beach in 1998

However, today’s artist

Professes to have no such

Knowledge, so puts it down

To sheer coincidence

Work it Out

I am in a small garden

Looking at Jeppe Hein’s

Waterflame

It is surreal

Almost beyond comprehension

Water and flame at one together

Maybe the artist

Was a chemist, or a physicist

Or a close relation

Of Guy Fawkes

Described elsewhere as:

Opposing elements co-existing

To create a paradoxical

Visual effect in an

Illusion of cooperative relationship

I too was taken

But think that I partially

Understand

The slights of hand

Of both of these magician’s tricks

Just Do It

I have had an idea

For when I return home

I have named it

Wednesday Afternoon Being Creative

It’s a sort of going back

But also a fast forwards

Yes it is to stimulate the creation of poetry

But also, art and photography, etcetera, etcetera

To try to pull together

A few of the creative types

From roundabouts and hereabouts

Who can encourage others to be creative

I don’t expect Anish Kapoor

Or James Turrell or Richard Long

Or any of those other major artists

Whose work can be seen at Houghton Hall

But maybe the local musicians

And poets and painters

And trekkers and photographers

Will come along to tell a tale

We too may think of specific spaces

Where our art may be displayed

Although of course that must wait

Until we are freed from lockdown

 

Name On Name

Today I intend to go

To Houghton Hall

The home of

The Cholmondeley's

Oh how I love that name

But first for breakfast

Bacon, two fried eggs

Toast and beans

Yes, how much better than being

The Fourth Earl of Nidderdale

To be the Buckminster Fuller

Of Cholmondeley

MOD Sculthorpe

And RAF Sculthorpe

Are both nearby

Perhaps once strategic bases

Yes, landing sites

For Sandringham Estate

Or for the first Prime Minister

Of Great Britain

But first for breakfast

Bacon, two fried eggs

Toast and beans

Should be fine

The Cholmondeley’s

Have had a presence

At Houghton Hall

Since the first Marquess

Inherited the place

In the 18th century

I make that to be

Quite a good while ago

Lord Cholmondeley

Was educated at Eton

And studied

At the Sorbonne, lucky lad

But first for breakfast

Bacon, two fried eggs

Toast and beans

Should be fine

Now he is married

To Rose Hanbury

They have two boys

And a daughter named Iris

But first for breakfast

Bacon, two fried eggs

Toast and beans

Should be fine

For a day which

Will mostly be spent

Out of doors

In the Cholmondeley’s garden

 

Dust On Dust

Where did religion go wrong

My grandma, of the Methodist Chapel

Fervently sang each and every song

I had no doubts as a young man

That I would marry in church

It was, as they say, already in the can

Yet I did show a certain lack of respect

A couple of drinks before the service

Which any self-aware vicar would detect

It is true my children went to Sunday school

And both were duly christened

As if ordained by some ancient familial rule

My daughter followed a similar pathway

Married in church (after a period of forced attendance)

Her children christened, on a parish christening day

Yet neither I nor my children regularly attend

In fact in my case hardly ever

Except the Christmas Mass, on which we all do depend

But this is ceremony, not belief

This is the absence of practice

From which we have taken our relief

The song books and the prayer books

Are left bereft and unused, laid

In the cases, in the nannies and the crooks

These buildings once so filled with buoyant life

Have let themselves be emptied

Foraging instead the paths of argument and strife