Philip Burton

Bacup, England, UK

 

In 2019, Philip Burton concurrently held four poetry competition First prizes, including: the Jack Clemo, the Sandwich (Kent) Poet of the Year, and the Barn Owl Trust. 

Philip was awarded Third prize, by Glyn Maxwell, in the 2020 Ware Poets competition.  

His poetry publications include The Raven’s Diary (joe publish 1998), Couples (Clitheroe Books Press 2008), His Usual Theft, (Indigo Dreams Press 2017) and Gaia Warnings (Palewell Press 2021). 

 

The poem was written on 19th November 2020

 

The Journey Down to Maggy’s for Christmas         

With apologies to TS Eliot 

A cold coming we’ll have of it this year. 

Road cones will tootle faster than traffic. 

Engines will roast chestnuts and you’ll hear drivers mutter               

that In-car Hi-fi Christmas carols 

                            are too much brandy butter. 

There are times we’ll regret leaving lockdown: 

all those pursed lips behind masks, 

the loneliness of long-distance gardens, 

the scare at the care home, the furlough faux pas, 

the U-turn-cos-I-want-to, the PM’s buddy buddy pardons: 

high spots of the year! 

 

Road King Services will heave with virus, 

virus spoilt for choice 

             between naked faces and unwashed thumbs.  

 

A cold coming we’ll have of it this year 

snacking on the Terrys All Gold, frankin-burgers, 

               and myrr-mite sarnies intended as gifts for our Sonia. 

We’ll follow the star on the in-front Subaru’s boot 

wheresoever it goes. We’ll just want to go. 

 

We’ll end up there. It will be like from death to life, 

but a journey so dire, a dead time journey. 

She could even give birth on the back seat, our Deirdre, 

while still on the Great Chertsey Road 

queued up and caught up in traffic in Surrey!