Jesus in city gun scare
—newspaper placard, Evening Argus, Brighton, Saturday 7 June 2003
Christ was in Brighton today,
wandered around the Lanes,
successfully incognito.
He went to the beach, but
Jesus cannot paddle.
He stood by the water's edge,
watched for drowning men.
A wild eyed woman drew
a gun from a knitted bag.
People nearby ducked their heads.
She shouted: 'Prepare to meet your maker.'
She did not know him. He was a man.
He looked into her eyes and smiled.
'A gun is quicker than a cross.
The entry and exit wounds
shall be my stigmata.'
'You're mad!' screamed the woman.
She turned and ran
as fast as the shingle allowed,
returning the gun to her bag.
The naked and the fuzz
This poem was broadcast on BBC Southern Counties Radio as the result of a 'creative challenge', part of the Brighton Festival in 2003
The day the nudist beach opened,
the scene was a sea of blue.
It wasn't the water
or anyone's daughter,
the blue was of uniform hue.
There was only one single
nude man on the shingle
more grey than blue or tan.
All around him the colour was
copper,
shoulder to shoulder in uniform blue
protecting the world from the view.
Later
I went back to the nudist beach
but it was clothed for lunch.
Oh! What a lovely pier
This poem was broadcast on BBC Southern Counties Radio on the day the West Pier burnt down&mdash'again—as the result of a 'creative challenge' to write about a designated local landmark in less than an hour, part of the Brighton Festival in 2003
Today a fire consumed the ballroom.
The West Pier stands a wreck, a hazard—
Mr Birch's great creation and tradition wiped away,
except in memory and in pictures.
Here began our movie industry:
'Celebrated Animatographe' shows
just across the road—the first outside London.
Pioneer film-makers set up cameras
on the beach between the piers,
cranked the handle, took the seaside
from Brighton to gawping audiences
long before they saw the California coast.
Here day-trippers walked over water,
giggled at the foaming tide,
laughed aloud in front of mirrors,
snapped each other with their Brownies,
heads inserted in seaside postcard cutouts . . .
cursed when the grabber dropped the diamond ring.
Here World War One was fought out,
generals milling in the ballroom,
chalking up the death-toll just across the water.
They said you could hear the guns from here.
(Pinky preferred a knife and the Palace Pier.)
What the First World War once brought to life,
fire and the elements have almost destroyed.
Whatever rises in its place has little left to build on
but Mr Birch's cast-iron screw piles
and those pictures. Now build, build on.
The Bedford Hotel
Aren't your suspicions aroused, as mine are,
When planning permission had been refused
To pull down the Bedford Hotel for rebuilding,
That it burnt down and no one was ever accused?
The West Pier
Don't you think it surprising (you oughta)
That persons unknown did not conspire
When a structure completely surrounded by water
Not once but twice caught fire?
You leave no footprints on Brighton beach.
The shingle accepts no impressions.
You leave nothing for tides to erase,
Even above the high water line.
You leave even less trace
Of your passage than usual.
I sit here in Brighton and rock to and fro,
My head on the cushion I watched my wife sew.
I sit of an evening, I ache and I creak,
And probably soon I'll be starting to leak.
This rocker was never in fights by the sea.
Excuse me a mo, I must go for a pee—
That's better. Where was I?—oh, yes, now I know.
I was never a rocker. I'd just go with the flow.
I wasn't a mod but perhaps I'll pretend:
I'll wear my old overcoat, restart a trend.
It's more Marks & Spencer than Crombie but, hey,
Would anyone notice the difference today?
But then, there's an M&S meal in the freezer.
There's no point denying: I'm just an old geezer.
where pebbles will clash
as the water recedes
and settle for moments
until the next wave
runs over the shingle
and foams as it filters
where pebbles will clash
as the water recedes
and settle for moments
until
Albert Einstein in North Street
I saw Albert Einstein in North Street,
a carrier bag in hand.
Not the fuzzy headed character of later years
but the younger hero Albert, with shorter
greying hair and a black moustache.
Perhaps it wasn't Einstein after all.
But, whoever he was,
he was relatively similar.
The words were buffeted on the airwaves
of the BBC World Service news at midnight,
fading in and out as atmospherics took control.
No helmsman guiding what was heard
amid the gale-winds and the storm-rain
sheeting off the roof, overflowing runnels.
A ship abandoned in the Channel off the coast
at Brighton. Whispers added by the wind:
it's waiting to be seen. Put on your coat,
leave a towel against your return
and bend into the wind.
And there is was, across from my street end:
a row of lights that tilted with the swell,
barely a Chain Pier's length from the beach.
I removed rain-smeared glasses, the lights
soft-focused. No sign of other watchers
facing into the sea's rage. I alone had heard
not quite the end of the world news.
Poor Mr Leggatt
high up on his scaffold,
chiselling words in stucco
visible at sea
steps back, perhaps
to check the spelling
of Crescent,
falls
and hits the railings,
leaves a wife and children
and his work in progress,
for which he is remembered.
No one knows who
finished off the job.
Celebrating a quarter century in Brighton, 2003
I've felt the mighty winds that made trees fall
And waited for the schemes that would enhance the place . . .
And what has been achieved? Why, bugger all.
Traditionalists make every project stall.
At best the plans develop at snail's pace.
I've felt the mighty winds that made trees fall.
There was to be a library, not small
And cramped—a change from what it would replace.
And what has been achieved? Why, bugger all.
The pier was blown down in a winter squall.
Against objectors, weather won the race.
I've felt the mighty winds that made trees fall.
And Churchill Square: now there's a shopping mall
Where sea-salt winds no longer prick the face.
What else has been achieved? Why, bugger all.
At least it's now a city, standing tall
Beneath the rolling Downs, the place to be
To feel the mighty winds that make trees fall.
And what has been achieved? Why, bugger all.
To be fair, the library did eventually open in 2005, a mere 66 years after the order to clear the site was passed.
Walking from London to Brighton
A friend planned to do this for charity.
I thought I might just do the same.
But I had no delusions of parity:
I walked up and down on the train.
Not to go down when the sea is so near
May lead you to think that I'm daft.
But it won't go away when I'm busy elsewhere
And sometimes I just can't be naffed.
© David Fisher 1962-2019