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Edward Chilvers, 21 Blake Avenue, Ipswich (2026)

16/06/2025

Half A Roman Coin

Chipping with the spade
On a warm dry day
Scraping the layers
Of the Suffolk clay
History embedded
In the summer ground
All that is hidden
Waits to be found

Half a copper coin
In the hardened clay
Two thousand years
To the light of day
Thick uneven metal
Severed by the plough
Baked into the soil
Until now

Was it much missed
Did the fellow hurry back
Scrabbling in the dirt
Of the Roman track?
Was the field a field?
Or perhaps a wooded path
Where a traveller stopped to rest
And lost it in the grass

Two thousand years
In the cold hard ground
Lost to the world
By an ancient hand
Sometimes seeing daylight
When churned by the plough
But remaining undiscovered
Until now

12/05/2025

Pottery Shards
(By Me)

Memories fragmented
Memories that last
Memories framed
Like a photograph
Grandma and granddad
Granddad and nanny
Aunts, uncles, cousins
Who made up my family
Tantrums and tears
Which could always be fixed
Teenage drama
And politics
Memories happy
Memories hard
Memories fragmented
Like pottery shards
Like a pottery shard
I found in a field
Just one broken piece
But the secret is sealed
Only one fragment
Of an antique design
But no sign of the rest
In the furrowing line
Memories broken
Memories barred
Cast into the fields
Like pottery shards
Of our conversations
I don’t remember a thing
But you’d a voice like a barn door
That creaked in the wind
And on your wall was a painting
Of a village in Spain
That I’d know in a flash
If I saw it again
Memories of glory
Memories scarred
Memories as useless
As pottery shards
Did the man or the woman
Who broke you that day
Remember you after
They’d thrown you away?
Were you a present?
Or part of a set?
Was your loss like a grievance
They couldn’t forget?
Memories merry
Memories tarred
Memories like stepping
On pottery shards
You must have been charming
Before you got broke
Moulded with pride
By the potters of Stoke
But beauty once shattered
Is no more than a blight
There’s no use for sharp pieces
Of blue and white
Memories protect us
Memories guard
Memories erode
Like pottery shards
Memories of then
Memories of now
Memories crushed
By the blade of the plough
Memories exalted
Memories marred
Buried deep in the ground
Like pottery shards

12/05/2025

Rainbow
(By Me - Inspired By Nula)

I can remember
We went one year
To the amusement arcade
On Central Pier
When we were in Blackpool
For the Easter break
I was loaded with sugar
And chocolate milkshake
And so excited
By the lights and the noise
I wanted to win tickets
And exchange them for toys
I tried the penny falls
The claw and the fruit
And the dino invasion
You had to shoot
I got so excited
And my blue eyes gleamed
When the tickets spilled out
Of those noisy machines
I kept them all safe
In my plastic coin cup
And when we were finished
A machine ate them up
And I pressed a button
And it started to beep
And for five hundred tickets
I got a receipt
Which I took to the shop
And before my blue eyes
Was a unicorn plush
That I claimed as my prize
With a coat of white fluff
And a rainbow mane
“And that’s his name; Rainbow”
I proudly proclaimed
And for the rest of the day
He was close by my side
Although I almost lost him
On the returning tram ride
Back at the hotel
I showed him to my friend
Who I played with for a week
And never saw again
I won many more tickets
And many more toys
From the arcade machines
With their lights and their noise
But it was with Rainbow
That I most liked to play
At least for the duration
Of that holiday
In the car on the Sunday
One last look at the sea
And then Blackpool became
A memory
And back home away
From the lights and the noise
Rainbow became
Just one more of my toys
Which I left on the floor
To untidy my room
I forgot all about him
And thus it was soon
That Rainbow went into
A bag in the loft
And I wasn’t fussed
For the moment was lost
And many years later
I’d stopped caring for toys
And found a new love
For different lights, different noise
But by chance in the loft
I found Rainbow again
And for the briefest of moments
I felt the same
As when I was in Blackpool
For the Easter break
Loaded with sugar
And chocolate milkshake

12/05/2025

My Holiday Friend
(By Me - Inspired By Nula)

I can still remember
My holiday friend
Who I played with for a week
And never saw again
At the big hotel
In the coastal town
And on the first evening
We both came down
To the bar with a stage
And a disco floor
And I might have been five
And you might have been four
I’d won a toy penguin
From the amusement arcade
And you’d gotten a doll
From the tickets you’d saved
You asked if I wanted to play pretend
And I said “Do you want
To be best friends?”
And that’s what we were
For that whole week away
And for a week I saw you
Every single day
And every evening
We had a toy which was new
That we’d show to each other
To inspect and review
And we danced together
And we were best friends
And it didn’t occur
I wouldn’t see you again
But one night you said
“I’m off home in the morning”
And I stayed one more night
But the evening was boring
For although I still danced
With the new kids who came
I was sad and I missed you
And it wasn’t the same
And I wonder if years later
You still remember your friend
Who you played with for a week
And never saw again

12/05/2025

Sea Gates Of The Saxon Shore
(By Me)

Sea-gates Of The Saxon Shore
Sea-gates of the Saxon shore
Forgotten men, forgotten lore
Sailed to certain landing stations
Founding counties, kingdoms, nations
Sheltered valleys, sheltered leas
Foreshores sheltered from the sea
Abandoned villas overgrown
From the distant days of Rome
Were stripped and scavenged of their bricks
Which with the wattle, daub and sticks
Repurposed into hearths and homes
A village born and quickly grown
Ten thousand folk and then some more
Sailed through the sea-gates to the shore
Hardy, hard, unsentimental
A hillock for their heathen temple
And then from Gaul was Felix sent
On orders from the hierophant
And thus the pagan ways were lost
And on the hillock came the cross
And as the winter months took hold
Bitter hunger, biting cold
And in the summer flies and fleas
Came in swarms to spread disease
And stormy winds and driving rain
Washed away the crops again
Yet still they came to landing stations
Founding counties, kingdoms, nations
Bringing culture, pride and faith
And every trial they justly faced
An endless battle for survival
Handled from their first arrival
When their sailing vessels bore
Through sea-gates of the Saxon shore

12/05/2025

Borrowed Land
(By Me)

Borrowed land
The river sends
But quickly takes away again
A narrow channel
Gives a mile
Flows slowly for a little while
And twisting, draining, it meanders
Retreating, yes, but no surrender
And in its wake it leave a land
Of jagged stones and muddy sand
And set amidst the tidal scree
Are artefacts of history
Bottles whole and bottles broke
And remnants of the ancient folk
Whose very living once relied
Upon the waning, waxing tide

Jagged spikes of ancient oak
Are all remaining of these folk
Their traps constructed for the fish
To catch and bring to Gyppeswick
And for a good one thousand years
The waters washed the wooden spears
And as the river ebbed and flowed
And caused the spikes to
The ancient spikes would thus erode
Now barely poke out from the sand
At the limit of this borrowed land
Yet they withstood the ebb and flow
To see the cranes of Felixstowe
And witness passing giant ships
To the town once known as Gyppeswick
But then there comes the tidal surge
The weathered poles are soon submerged
The borrowed land is soon retaken
Eternal river, reawakened

12/05/2025

The Torch Song
(By Me)

I can sing a torch song in the heat of the night
I can sing a torch song in the flickering light
I can move in synch to the rhythm of the flames
I can move in synch to the rules of the game
I can sing a torch song against the roar
Of a blinding white inferno radiating from the core
I can move in synch with the rising grey smoke
I can twist all angles without ever getting broke
I can sing a torch song as the bonfire burns
I can sing a torch song as the season turns
I can sing a torch song as the burning wood crackles
I can sing a torch song as my body rattles
I can sing a torch song as my soul departs
I can move in synch with the dancing sparks
I can sing a torch song as the tall pyre crashes
I can sing a torch song in the red hot ashes
I can sing a torch song as the sun dips low
I can sing a torch song in the afterglow

Edward Chilvers

16/06/2025

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