Visit To Lincolnshire

    About this time last week
    I was laying down a pencil
    going through the little rituals
    of finishing a poem.
    Mine include a walk,
    so I’d grabbed a coat
    and I was on the street,
    left for the river path
    or over the old bridge,
    it could have been right,
    it could have been dark,
    but that’s not the point,
    for in this town and sometime city
    the streets keep the hours
    I need them to keep,
    shaping their mood to my own.
    About this time today
    I’m in a cottage, thatch and all,
    two miles from a village,
    ten miles from the town,
    miles from any sense of space.
    South are fields of Rape, keep out.
    West are fields of Rape, keep out.
    North is an electric fence, keep out.
    East is a Private Estate.
    The track outside is hedged and straight,
    sure that I want the village road,
    a tight little road of corners and banks
    where it’s not safe to walk.
    It’s not safe to walk
    and I’ve started to feel trapped.
    surrounded by space and Out and Off,
    there’s no one in sight but I feel control
    tugging my forelock and forcing me down.
    I’d leave but I’d said I’d stay the week
    they needed a break, I’d feed the cats,
    write in peace, the perfect place,
    three days to go, in only four hours,
    it’s three days to go.


* Terry Quinn says "I'm a medical engineer in a hospital by day and present a weekly arts show on Preston FM which takes up my evenings. Well, except when football needs to be watched in a proper football ground."