*****

Estill Pollock‘s first pamphlet selection of poems, Metaphysical Graffiti, was published in England. This was followed by a principal collection, Constructing the Human (Poetry Salzburg), which was later developed into the book cycle, Blackwater Quartet. Between 2005-11, in collaboration with Cinnamon Press in Wales, he published a second major book cycle, Relic Environments Trilogy. His latest collection, Entropy is published by Broadstone Books (2021) in the United States. A native of Kentucky, he has lived in England for forty years.

*****

LONDON IN THOSE TIMES

London in those times
Of Empire, the waterlines
Of sailing fleets weighed
Low with slaves and spice, the world
Packed piecemeal into the holds

*

A greasy light cuts
The chill, but will not repair
The damp, his window
Above the muleskinner’s yard
Shut tight against steel on bone

*

A rough-coated dog
Noses along the gutter
For chop scraps, fat cuts
And gristle a feast in streets
Boiling leather for a meal

*

Shrill news of war, lamps
Flickering on handbills sold
On corner pitches
To citizens wary tax
Must rise to stop the Russians

*

Holes half-grave slam coach
And passengers, knocking loose
Teeth and bowels, beaten
Wheel springs bent from ruts— one man
Faints, puking cheese and kidneys

*

The market boy puts
A baby on the girl, who
Is fourteen next month
But looks older, her mother
Scolding, What took you so long

*

Shabby-genteel, sat
Days in lawyers’ lobbies, courts
And hallways, places
Out of the rain, faded suits
A beeswax shine at the knees

*

Warm work with hornpipes
The shawl-dance and blithe quadrilles
Led him by lamp-light
To spirit rounds in praise of
The dancing master’s daughter

*

Mutton, fowls and pork
Washed with porter-pots, actors
Commiserate with
Actors, theatres worse now
With encore fads for fire hoops

*

At the park Sunday
A young lady with her beau
Smiling at the waltz
The band played, behind them, low
Men, laughing at her ankles

*

As arranged, they meet
In the park, her new blue hat
And velvet bracelet
Matching her parasol, his
Spit clipping her pretty shoes

*

Rag-bound cadavers
Slumped where they fell, in doorways
Or by arches just
Yesterday their stage, their plea
Sir, what is an Englishman

*

A sham investment
With his name prominent, shares
Sworn gilt-edged by rogues
He trusted, the court’s mercy
A cell at the Marshalsea

*

A sweep’s luck, fire irons
And the grates, a tale once told
Of a prince’s son
Kidnapped, raised by rowdy names
For smoke holes, good as any

*

The fair ends, sodden
Clothes, the lord drunk, quarrelsome
And her ladyship
Dragging muddy skirts, a clown
Somewhere, still beating a drum

*

Girls without bonnets
Winking as they pass, and shops
Of grave goods third-rate
Actors pawned, stage shoes, a dress
Yellowed in the dirty light

*

The neighbour found her
Sunk-eyed, bloody with the wound
Her husband dealt, death
Upon her, police said, still
She swore it was never him

*

A pretty redhead
Shucked oysters at her shop, men
Waiting, the oysters
Slipping down, one man, lovesick
Hoping he was not too old
…

Apprentice boys, bright
Buttons on bright coats, free day
In the park, dare each
Other the gentleman’s rate
For their feet up on a chair

*

Quick to his grave and
Quicker still the Will, his kin
A dirty crew, Thames-
Bred, who knew the bite of gold
And the oily codicil

*

The boarding house, brass
Letter plate, brass knocker, rooms
Let furnished, private
Keys for gentlemen meeting
The landlady’s requirements

*

A long story, made
More so by misremembered
Names he sought to pull
From thin air, his pension one
For service at Waterloo

*

After much handling
By her employer she left
Her position, in
A parting note, the words Crazed
And Culpable spelled with Ks

*

At libraries, spas
And musical events three
Seasons now, her girls
Honed ingenious skills, eyes
Bright for suitors at the door

*

The widow hid coins
In her wig, the weight of it
Leading her this way
And that, at meals coughing her
Teeth into the soup tureen

*

The afternoon, dull
As Lord Chesterfield’s Letters
Took courage at sparks
Flying from the hammer forge
To hurrahs of cheering boys

*

He sighed at mention
Of Lord Byron, quoting verse
That made ladies blush
And their husbands conspire
To part him from his senses

*

On his face, the look
Of Hamlet at his father’s
Ghost, inheritance
Once snakes-and-ladders yowls, now
Purring for his signature

*

He polished his boots
As always, just in the way
As Army days, at
The table a game pie, his
Wife too, a knife in her neck

*

The lady’s honour
In doubt from his throwaway
Remark, the challenge
Is made, the duel in the field
Where as boys they used to play

*

Looks, a character
At home in a Richardson
Novel, all else as
God intended, his ships set
Fair across a hundred seas

*

A bachelor’s life
Fifty years, he considered
Matrimony might
Suit his later time, the one
He never knew loved him, dead

*

The horse-and-gig left
To a boy to mind, the hours
Went by, the fourpence
A beggarly reward for
The cold that killed him later

*

A room let furnished
Overlooking the churchyard
Suited his sojourns
Among the tombstones, his notes
On extinct lines admired still

*

She is delivered
Of the child by a woman
From the neighbourhood
Who speaks softly of linen
For preparing the dead boy

*

Of the hospital
He knew nothing, apart from
Its rattle-breath wards
And rumours of dark rooms, and
People pickled there in jars

*

A shaded lamp by
The bedside, the woman’s nurse
And children, crying
And her husband, bloodshot drunk
Asking the day, and the hour

*

A dirty, lawless
Time, windows stuffed with rags, poles
Jammed in casement cracks
Hung with dank clothes, a sluggish
Drain, children with stick-horses

*

The half-pay captain
With a small annuity
Besides, agreed terms
Of the lease, but knew nothing
Of houses, or housemaids vexed

*

Handy in the lane
With hedges, and for his skills
Promoted to head
Gardener, his hoe work caught
The eye of the master’s wife

*

The girls, thin as wax
Candles, flickered in and out
Of life, hospital
Hallways a cold Thames current
Gathering them quick under

*

The Thames, stinking sump
From Westminster to the sea
Requires Parliament
Swim through sewers to law, the
Medieval cess made new

*

Darwin attests apes
Are our brothers in the soul
However, ladies
And gents, our readers resent
The notion monkeys sing hymns

*

A joke a joke, but
Women’s suffrage names its fools
In street-parades their
Own children shy from, Mother
Jailed, in the road, men laughing

*

A block-tin oven
For baked potatoes, kidney
Pies, waxed paper lights
The wind snuffs cold, theatre
Omnibuses, pompous men

*

Brawling in the street
Or loafing against the posts
Day labourers, boys
As squalid as the houses
In Seven Dials, its cracked bell

*

The Queen Empress, dead
And no one could think how such
A little cough fooled
Physicians, its rarity
No doubt reflected in fees

*

The city mourns, black
Crepe draped on every window
While courtiers in
Their private quarters decide
The shape of new world order

*

Coal smoke, yellow fog
Sinuous through a sickly
City, the wealthy
Fled to their estates, the poor
Begging pennies for their graves

*

A boy soldier, he
Marched against Napoleon
And cheered the Duke, now
Frail, his only memory
The summer the Thames ran dry

*

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