Out of Date

Out of Date

1720 and it’s the 13^th of June and the first Duke has earned his ermine.

Previous Earls, Barons and a Marquess or two glance down upon the vermin.

A spirited Celt, a Saxon Fair and some Romans who landed at Poole harbour

Are looking on and looking down, sighing in the shady arbour.

Alas, alack their reign was short and gone they were in a blink

Like fellow Pliosaurs from Weymouth Bay, the line became extinct.

From 155 million years ago or in 1843 in verdant Dorset they briefly did flourish

Families of dusty dinosaurs or progenitors the lovely county did nourish.

An asteroid hit or reptiles caught cold, a peer dies without his wish,

It is hard to chart events that might have snuffed out gentry or fish

Anachronisms now that once were fashionable wave ‘au revoir’

To a glorious family motto ‘Either never attempt, or accomplish’.

A family motto, the simple maxim they lived by

and both dinosaur and man join the extinct Dorset Society Alumni.


By Linda Prince
 

The Ice Cream

The Ice Cream

Stir it up. Swirl the colours: cream, pale yellow or dainty pink

Stir it up. Gyrate the streaks, earthy brown or black like ink.

Spirals agitate, a geology of Neapolitan dessert, different but with a link.

The spoon excavates the ice cream, making whorls of flavour

Gently, imperceptibly the patterns fade and die, but savour

The chill, the thrill, a summer’s day, a rest from daily labour.

The dog runs free across the bay, splashes in salt water the colour of Turkish delight.

The ice is melting, a vortex of sweetness, gone the shades of the traffic light

One creamy muddle, round and round, a sundae whirlpool ammonite.

Ketton cream or German brown, oolitic pink cliffs formed in ice,

Sedimentary streaks of colour, volcanic ice cream bombs sprinkled like silver rice,

Rocks that shine, or glint or fragment, or metamorphic gneiss.

Wandering aimlessly along strata, ice cream tub sticky, lost gradation

The Jurassic Coast looms large against aquamarine sky, white jewelled encrustation.

The dog, in joy aloud she barks, the ice cream drips and breaks the contemplation.

Striations of history, rock striped through and through, keeping us safe and watertight,

Pillars of rock brooding and towering down, awe and inspiring Heritage Site

Jurassic cliffs that have stood the tests of time, keep us safe by day and by night.

By Linda Prince