Islington

Here slow decay with creeping finger peels
The yellow plaster from the grimy walls,
Like leprous lichen, day by day which falls,
And, day by day, more rotting stone reveals!
Here are old mournful squares through which there steals
No cheerful music, or the heedless calls
Of laughing children; and the smoke, which crawls
Across the sky, the heavy silence seals!

Lean, blackened trees stretch up their withered boughs
Behind the rusty railings, prison-bound,
In vain they seek the summer sunlight's gold
In which their long-dead fathers used to drowse:
For pallid terraces lie far around,
In gloomy sadness ever growing old.

Ochey-les-Bains, 1917.

Paul Bewsher

Paul Bewsher was an English poet and military aviator who gained recognition for his contributions during World War I. Born on September 3, 1894, and having passed away on April 14, 1966, Bewsher served as an observer and later as a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service. His experiences in the war influenced his poetry, which often reflected the harrowing realities of aerial combat. Bewsher later pursued his career as a writer and his works are still remembered for their poignant depiction of wartime experiences.

Paul Bewsher

To Carlton Berry

Paul Bewsher, Simple Poetry

Clouds

Paul Bewsher, Simple Poetry

Cloud Thoughts

Paul Bewsher, Simple Poetry

The Joy of Flying

Paul Bewsher, Simple Poetry

English

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King And John Streets (For Isabella Vacancy Crawford)

    When the shadows are hungry
    animals on walls
    and theatre goers are
    parliamentarians engaged
    in a repast or feast
    of words.
    the lone house stands
    as a stone shard or sliver
    about to disengage itself
    from the eye.

    For behind boulders of tenement
    walls and vines creeping
    to match the red brick of
    sumac and the parrot bill of fire escape stairs,
    I watch the building
    cylindrical in the darkness
    crouching thin air
    as if an awkward child
    were about to make strange
    for the dozenth time.

    There are few things to duplicate
    plaster held by the bite of wind,
    open poverty like lesions
    refusing to move.
    neglect that festers

Paul Cameron Brown

The Waters Of The Bay Lie Beneath

    An abandoned house -
    dark salved to eclectic;
    crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
    disparate to the elements.

    The waters of the bay lie beneath.
    A long slope trailing back of brush,
    garbles stones hoarse
    in the throat of a dust-flecked field
    are made more barren
    by the skunk cabbage weeds,
    the ugly, flotsam cloaks
    of horse hair to the neck -
    a hair shirt, coddling abrupt the barren pain
    tilled from empty soil.

    The summer's heat.
    Nameless insect waifs
    wavering, adjusting tumult
    to straighten the tight air
    about the outward door frame.
    Pinched in windows, glass in
    refugee lots billowing about
    urine paper;
    nails a ruddy pick

Paul Cameron Brown

Where They Lived

Dishevelled leaves creep down
Upon that bank to-day,
Some green, some yellow, and some pale brown;
The wet bents bob and sway;
The once warm slippery turf is sodden
Where we laughingly sat or lay.

The summerhouse is gone,
Leaving a weedy space;
The bushes that veiled it once have grown
Gaunt trees that interlace,
Through whose lank limbs I see too clearly
The nakedness of the place.

And where were hills of blue,
Blind drifts of vapour blow,
And the names of former dwellers few,
If any, people know,
And instead of a voice that called, "Come in, Dears,"
Time calls, "Pass below!"

Thomas Hardy

In October.

Along the waste, a great way off, the pines,
Like tall slim priests of storm, stand up and bar
The low long strip of dolorous red that lines
The under west, where wet winds moan afar.
The cornfields all are brown, and brown the meadows
With the blown leaves' wind-heapèd traceries,
And the brown thistle stems that cast no shadows,
And bear no bloom for bees.

As slowly earthward leaf by red leaf slips,
The sad trees rustle in chill misery,
A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips,
That move and murmur incoherently;
As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing,
With pale hushed throats, for death is at the door,
So many low soft masses for the dying
Sweet leaves that live no more.

Here I will sit upon this naked stone,
Draw my coat ...

Archibald Lampman

Chelsea

How many of those youths who consecrate
Their lives to art, and worship at her shrine,
And sacrifice their early hours and late
In serving her exacting whims divine
Have gathered in old Chelsea's shaded peace,
Whose faint, elusive charm, and gentle airs,
Bring inspiration fresh, and sweet release
From Trouble's haunting shapes and goblin cares?

O! tree-embowered hamlet, whose demesne
Sleeps in the arms of London quietly,
Whose sparrow-haunted roads, and squares serene,
From all the stress of life seem ever free -
O! are you more than just a passing dream
Beside the city's slim and lovely stream?

Luxeuil-les-Bains, 1917.

Paul Bewsher

Embankment At Night, Before The War

Outcasts.

The night rain, dripping unseen,
Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands.

The river, slipping between
Lamps, is rayed with golden bands
Half way down its heaving sides;
Revealed where it hides.

Under the bridge
Great electric cars
Sing through, and each with a floor-light racing along at its side.
Far off, oh, midge after midge
Drifts over the gulf that bars
The night with silence, crossing the lamp-touched tide.

At Charing Cross, here, beneath the bridge
Sleep in a row the outcasts,
Packed in a line with their heads against the wall.
Their feet, in a broken ridge
Stretch out on the way, and a lout casts
A look as he stands on the edge of this naked stall.

Beasts that sleep will cover
Thei...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence