As a boy I used to play here
inside the burnt out walls
playing hide n seek and other games
within its hallowed halls
Once we ventured to the basement
down dark and dusty stair
oblivious to danger
with innocence to dare
But now all these years later
it is a block of flats
although the outside walls remain
preserved and still intact
You'd never think from how it looks
that many years ago
the boards of this forgotten pier
I walked down oft and slow
Derelict for forty years
and then destroyed by fire
the skeletal remains now stand
as its last funeral pyre
Brighton's West Pier still it's called
but you'll need imagination
to picture once how grand it was
from this last iteration
In Sussex there’s a bridge
Built in fourteen twenty-two
now closing on six hundred years
since its fine stones were new
It spans the river Arun
near Stopham Village where
it’s provided here a crossing
for local folk to share
And so it was with Romans
Fishbourne finally today
saw Sal and I this morning
venture out and come this way
England’s mosaic glory
tessellated on the ground
tells a tale of history
when in the sixties found
And now this treasure prospers
revealed for all to see
Especially today for
my soulmate Sal and me
Split was a tale of two cities
spread across differing times
Roman columns interspersed
reused with modern lines
Ingenuity prevailed as
walls within walls lay
Preserving parts of history
to see another day
The Roman forum’s vista
looks to ‘Jadransko More’
Its marbled stone-clad ruins
On the Dalmatian shore
Where Zadar’s Saint Donatus
with Byzantine aplomb
borrowed Roman architecture
to build its walls upon
So, there’s already some words written
about me as I am today
But there’s more to make the story
complete in every way
For once I was much bigger
cruciform in shape
Part of Shoreham’s presence
on the Sussex south landscape
Nine hundred years I’ve been here
in Shoreham’s ancient port
A Catholic church turned Anglican
the parish to support
My cruciform original has
crumbled over time
But what is left still standing
is still within its prime
James Brindley was an engineer
born seventeen seventy-two
Who later, when he’d qualified
canals and water knew
He designed many aqueducts
and tunnels through the rocks
along with single traffic gates
in narrow water locks
