Red Box Poem by Frank Bana

Hard to believe where it went down

A red telephone booth, the enclosed kind

Worn and smelling of decades of use

ER or VR fixed in iron on the wood

And where it stood: the Channel steps


Down at the sea at Brighton, yes

There's one still be to found, still standing there

They must have left it for the tourist look

At the boardwalk mouth of Brighton pier.

And it was spring and sunshine as I watched

The indo-anglian families from the hotels

The old and toothless hangers-on

Who sleep under the stars at the low tide


Pale London lovers in their innocence

Pass by, with candyfloss and cigarettes

With jellied eels and biltong

Bears and foaming beer

From the shies and rides. I called

From the air-deprived confines

With card and coins in hand, across the sea

To fasten tight again the narrow strand

That holds our hearts to us, the line

We do not mean to fall, unwind

When the moment comes, we cried

We found the words that fasten up

The knot, the tie that makes it bind.


How old the narrow box, how obsolete

The ways we still communicate

Remain in their insistency, the stubbornness

That floods the line, that will not let

Love die, before the end of purchased time

In just the place, in its confine

The ages left for us, there by

The sea, the pier, the stony beach


The setting sun, the crowds dispersing

Anxious for some other kinds of fun

To make the day complete. I watch them leave

I'll stay, until the final light recedes

Hearing your voice, the plans

Entreaties, vows, existence spans

All echo here, knowing this

If I can reach you from this booth

Then I can reach you anywhere.


Against us there were frowns, and miles

A world that didn't want a joy to live

The cruelties of arbitrary life

Converged in their conspiracy

To pull these little fingers well apart


But still there stands above the beach

One weather-beaten box of wood

That holds the line and stands upright

Where once again and for a while

We did not fall from day to night

Into a frozen sea.