The final stanza makes an obvious nod to Tennyson's mighty poem, 'Ulysses' - " 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world,/ Push off, and sitting well in order smite/ The sounding furrows..."
Other poems about Penzance - the granite jewel of the west! - are 'A Penzance Ballad' posted on 2 March 2015 (link here), 'A Wild Penzance Night' posted on 11 June 2018 (link here), and 'John Davidson and I' posted on 23 September 2021 (link here).------------
Long years ago on Sunday afternoons
I’d see an old-time fellow taking air,
Limping the chill and granite streets
Of old Penzance, a small and short-legged dog
Wrapped in a body blanket shuffling at his heels;
His loves and any workplace feats
Now past, his look said life was cold, his days repeats.
Young and in health, I barely spared him thought;
Stiffly he walked a course from Penare Terrace,
Down Barwis Hill to Caldwells Road,
And then, who knows? Years later now, enraged
To find myself an old-time fellow taking air,
I walk with pains from Caldwells Road,
Up Barwis Hill to Penare Terrace, pant and slowed,
(Claiming no dog) on Sunday afternoons,
Saddened my life is cold, my days repeats.
These January days there’s few
To stroll and all seem blatant in their youth –
Loose-dressed, hot-skinned, fluent of step and frank in knowing
Their tide’s in flood; a glance or two
They spare then, mind-blanked, pass to what they have to do.
Thereby they prove the truth: those things you did
To others will be done to you. So be it.
That man must long be in his grave,
Perhaps the crowded ground on Madron Road
(Its pets yard burying his dog if death called first);
How long then shall I spurn his wave,
Being past all loves and works, the shortlived joys they gave?
From Penare Terrace, blocked between the houses,
Downhill, the distant sea is grey; it’s waiting
The west wind’s arbitrary slap;
But I, Ulysses of the drab, will seek
No final jaunt, my boat’s oars chasing the full moon;
For me mere housework, then a nap,
And last, coffined at Madron Road, the earth my cap.
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© February 2020
