Crossing the Frontier

Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time,

Told, quite politely, they would have to wait:

Passports in order, nothing to declare

And surely holding hands was not a crime

Until they saw how, ranged across the gate,

All their most formidable friends were there.

Wearing his conscience like a crucifix,

Her father, rampant, nursed the Family Shame;

And, armed wlth their old-fashioned dinner-gong,

His aunt, who even when they both were six,

Had just to glance towards a childish game

To make them feel that they were doing wrong.

And both their mothers, simply weeping floods,

Her head-mistress, his boss, the parish priest,

And the bank manager who cashed their cheques;

The man who sold him his first rubber-goods;

Dog Fido, from whose love-life, shameless beast,

She first observed the basic facts of sex.

They looked as though they had stood there for hours;

For years; perhaps for ever. In the trees

Two furtive birds stopped courting and flew off;

While in the grass beside the road the flowers

Kept up their guilty traffic with the bees.

Nobody stirred. Nobody risked a cough.

Nobody spoke. The minutes ticked away;

The dog scratched idly. Then, as parson bent

And whispered to a guard who hurried in,

The customs-house loudspeakers with a bray

Of raucous and triumphant argument

Broke out the wedding march from Lohengrin.

He switched the engine off: “We must turn back.”

She heard his voice break, though he had to shout

Against a din that made their senses reel,

And felt his hand, so tense in hers, go slack.

But suddenly she laughed and said: “Get out!

Change seatsl Be quickl” and slid behind the wheel.

And drove the car straight at them with a harsh,

Dry crunch that showered both with scraps and chips,

Drove through them; barriers rising let them pass

Drove through and on and on, with Dad’s moustache

Beside her twitching still round waxen lips

And Mother’s tears still streaming down the glass.

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A few random poems:

External links

Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus

Talking Writing Monster’s Page –

Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh

Poems in English 

• The Licorice Fields at Pontefract poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• The Last Laugh poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• The Irish Unionist’s farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922 poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• The Hon. Sec. poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• The Cottage Hospital poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Sun and Fun poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• South London Sketch poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Slough poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Senex poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Seaside Golf poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• On a Portrait of a Deaf Man poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Myfanwy poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Mortality poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Middlesex poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Meditation on the A30 poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Loneliness poem – John Betjeman poems by John Betjeman
• Ireland With Emily poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Inexpensive Progress poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• In Westminster Abbey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• How To Get On In Society poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

Doska or the Board – write anything

Search engines:

Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)

Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.

Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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