Letter From Lands End Poem by Mike Tonkin

The last place on earth
Before you get to
America,
Land’s End.
But now
You have to go through
A bloody amusement park
To get there.
Why did they allow it?
Damned planners
Why did they allow it?
It cost millions but
They are making
Millions
It’s a good deal
You just sit back and
The money rolls in.
And the tourists are
Happy.

I knew it in the fifties,
There were jerry built
Houses and
Collapsing shops
Selling lighthouses and
Ashtrays and
Other things made out of
Serpentine.
Those buildings
Were at the end
Of the world
And when you left them
Behind there were
Only the cliffs and
Miles of
Hunchbacked sea
Hurling itself against
The rock walls
In the hope of maybe
Making a way
Through to
Atlantis and magical
Lyonesse.
Watching the weather
Is like watching a war.
Great banks of
Thunder clouds racing
Across the sky and
Rain falling like
A thick curtain. It stops
And you hold your breath,
Then it starts again and
Takes you by surprise
With it’s ferocity,
A shaft of watery
Sun is etched
In the sky and as you
Watch
It is extinguished
Everything is bleak
And dark again and
You feel so lonely.
Lightning forks across
The sky
And lights up the
Desolate scene
And thunder
Rolls and crashes
And it makes you think
Of the end of the world.
That wind is so
Powerful and as
The waves batter
The cliffs
You feel that it
Will reach out
With it’s little finger and
Pluck you into the maelstrom.

If you get the chance
Go there and see
A storm
You will get soaked
But what is a soaking
When you are watching
The heavens perform
You perhaps think
That I am mad
Perhaps I am
But it is better
Than any film.
It is real