Lost Horizons

Newton Abbot junction, steam
    Finally gone off the boil,
Still supplied a cue to dream
    Even in the age of oil
As its obsolete PA–
    Crackles, echoes, Devon burrs –
Garbled stations all the way
     Down through Cornwall’s farms and furze.

Now new speakers’ clear RP
    Dims the Duchy’s rail romance,
Farewell fancy’s former spree
    From St Germans to Penzance,
Farewell Whiskered Codling Spa,
    Sham-Prawn, Dead Youth, Hell and Dearth,
Shrunk to Liskeard, Bodmin, Parr,
    Camborne, Redruth, Hayle, St Erth!

Jerome Betts

If you have any comments on this poem, Jerome Betts would be pleased to hear from you.