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zenith

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

One early afternoon at the nadir

or the zenith of the so-called Cuban

Missile Crisis – a good or, rather, bad

two years before ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and ‘Fail-Safe’

were screened – I was waiting in the drear

and white-tiled catacombs of Liverpool’s

Central Station – where it always seemed

as if it were night and the blitz still on

and water appeared to drip continuously –

for the next train, under the Mersey,

to Chester, when I heard somewhere beyond me,

somewhere unidentifiable, a loud,

continuing roar like boulders crumbling

or, more likely, city blocks tumbling

onto the streets above and I feared

that either or both the shoe-thumping

Premier and the tanned President

had advanced Armageddon. I believed,

then, rhetoric and realpolitik

were one so the momentary fear was

visceral.

 

The Soviet Empire has been demolished,

the American reduced, not least

its consumption of Havana Cigars,

but Cuba welcomes all tourists, though those

with only U.S. dollars to exchange

are surcharged.

 

 

 

 

‘A WINDY DAY’ & ‘A CALM MORNING’

 

A WINDY DAY, J.M.W.TURNER Tabley, the seat of Sir J.F. Leicester

They bought up land, made marriages, dispossessed

tenants and built their fortune on rents.

These commissions mark their zenith. Since then,

the estate has been sold off acre by

acre, piece by piece – one Turner remains,

the other hangs in another museum.

Some things are unchanged: in the distance,

the house’s palladian exterior

in local sandstone, the round turreted

folly on the small island in the lake – an ancient

Cheshire mere. Gone are the fishing boats

tacking on the choppy water or anchored

in the pink stillness just after dawn.

Whatever fishes thrive are largely

unmolested and aircraft rise from Ringway

five miles or so to the north. But England

continues – consuming, class ridden.

A CALM MORNING, J.M.W.TURNER