Cheam poems on Hello Poetry

John Edward Smallshaw Jun 2014

The ideosyncrasies of the cities are not
found in the small towns,
the dirt poor brown towns,
the twitching of curtains and dressing gown towns,
but the **** pulls us out of the towns and into the city where the
sewers are home to the rats and the mountains built up on
the streets are a home for the cats,the fat cats,the purring cats, the sharing caring who am I kidding cats,
they are the leeches
weekdays in suits and the weekends in knickerbockers,breech loaders,the feeding free loaders,the gum boot brigade,tea,toast and marmalade,raid the pension accounts and they get an accolade brigade.
The small town mentality will be the death of me,I can see this is wrong but go along with it,up to my neck in it,with paddles I row in it,
the city is full of ****..

The cranes,
new age pterodactyls, chomping their way through the last of the daffodils,sending them downstream to a landfill in East Cheam,sometimes if I dream,I dream in black and white and the city then looks alright but in my heart I know it's crumbling,falling apart at the seams,held together by nightmares and more dreams from the townies,cub scouts and brownies,I don't dream a lot anymore.

#utopian #salomedancingdeath

David Lewis Paget Feb 2014

The Age of Steam

The news spread over the countryside
As a clatter from iron rails,
The ominous sound of clacketty-clack
From their intersecting trails,
The plodding Goods of the 0-4-0
To the proud Express from Cheam,
It muttered as it was going past,
‘They’re going to get rid of Steam!’

The sudden shock brought an answering hoot
From the stack of the proud Express,
That whispered by on its 4-6-2
But shuddered to draw its breath.
‘And what will they pull their Pullmans with?’
As it passed through an April shower,
A 4-6-0 on another track:
‘They’re moving to diesel power!’

The steam from the Earl of Erin laid
A trail through the valley floor,
Its coals glowed red from the firebox grid
As the fireman shovelled more,
A Day Excursion that quietly sat
To wait for the train to pass,
Had whispered, ‘Sorry to see you go,
You’re King of the Master Class.’

The smoke that billowed from out the stack
Had turned from white to black,
The footplate shuddered, the furnace roared
As it raced along the track,
‘They say they’re moving to diesel power
And they’re getting rid of steam,’
The Earl of Erin had hurtled by
As a Tank Engine had screamed!

The driver, checking the frantic pace
Was trying to slow it down,
But nothing worked, not even the brakes,
‘We’re headed for Hampton Town!
We shouldn’t be doing sixty-five
We’re twenty over the top,
He slammed the door of the firebox shut
And the fireman’s shovel dropped.

The tender’s couplings opened up
And the Pullmans fell away,
The Earl of Erin had surged ahead
With a new found power that day,
It passed a struggling 0-4-0
As it headed toward the sea,
Gave one long blast on its whistle then
To say, ‘I’m finally free!’

The fireman jumped at the water tower,
The glass was going down,
The driver jumped when it hurtled through
The Halt at Hampton Town,
The Earl of Erin went racing on
When the sea came into view,
But locked the brakes at the water’s edge
Just as the boiler blew.

The Earl of Erin’s a rusted wreck
That still sits there on the line,
And children crawl on its footplate there
And dream of another time,
A time of dragons, a time of trains
A time they can only dream,
The age of romance, gone at last,
It died with the age of steam!

David Lewis Paget

ANH Jul 2013

Home

When privilege has you scattered
others don't see the drain
of a life mapped in tatters,
each scrap on a different plane;
life has left me perpetually lost
but how else could I be found,
how else would I learn the cost
of directions not homeward bound?
I look over the undead corpses
of the homes I used to know -
one that crawled in roses
spelt my childhood the most
they bloomed in all the colours
that a child's heart could dream
and stained the century-old windows
so it seemed the little house did gleam
and when we left it ripped my heart out,
though not the first nor last home lost,
but that's what true love is about -
being left hollowed out with frost.
And now my memories are in footsteps,
trodden away from my new home,
because with age comes curiosity
and a desire to be alone
and when I walk these old Cheam streets,
a village slipping through London's fingers,
my heart beats through my ambling feet
and the ache of pure love lingers
because the walls crumble at my touch
and the streetlights flicker red and die
because the city is at an Oyster touch
but trees are gathered at my side
because the huge huddled houses loom
but birds and foxes can still roam
because bulbous roses will always bloom
in a place that I call home.

But this time I am leaving,
for a different city now,
though this town on London's border
is the best one I have known;
my footsteps travel further
but to a place, for once, that's mine
but I'll take all of these memories
and a rose to keep the time.

John Edward Smallshaw Dec 2014

The Strand

Here in the throwaway where
the day wastes its sunlight.
and the night is a blemish that
erupts on the face of the Town.
The corrupted and vile,
given an inch,take a mile and
the priests are nowhere to be seen.

The only Chapter house dean,a
hell's angel from Cheam is pretending so hard
to be hard
but it's a dot on the card, that
he goes home to his life
with a big motor home,four kids
and a wife he can't stand.

In the land of the castle keep view,
there are few who are
what they seem.
if we lean to the left or the right we
become another throwaway,
another scab on the face of the night.

Jehovah comes calling to
witness
this fall in the falling of man but
pretends not to see,
I wonder if he really cares about me.

In the throwaway, the day stumbles on
any hope that remains
is long gone,
It's just one more town going down and
I wonder if he really cares.

— The End —