Lawrence Land

Lawrence Land by Neil McCall

This landscape could be Sussex now;
the hollows scoured of pitheads
and the terrace gentrified.
Colliers are as scarce as landed ladies,
cocksure gamekeepers all but wiped out.

The slag turned grassy, then was levelled
and became the Tesco car park.
Over-mothered OFSTED men
dream inky dreams
of crinolines and canes
now strictly by appointment only.

No spark of tram or chuff of piston
to disturb the gypsies' horses;
no black boot on cobblestone;
no black soot on tubercled lung.
I diarise myself
to try to steal my tutor's wife.