My debut poetry collection Chester City Walls, is published by Poetry Space (http://www.poetryspace.co.uk). You can purchase a copy here – see details at the bottom of the page – or through Poetry Space.
Chester’s Walls form a unique landmark that not only contain a City, but also many aspects of the City’s story over centuries. The collection walks the reader round the City Walls in space and time, reflecting on their meaning as well as their making.
Chester City
Walled city: playing card compact,
defined by ranks of Roman spades,
ramparting turf and timber lines
till Empire’s eagle fluttered, fled.
Here, Charles watched his Royalists lose
heart in battle on the baize plain.
Queen’s faces too, have graced the pack –
Aethelflaeda, Victoria.
Scuffed and dog-eared sandstone edges
once patrolled, now promenaded.
Tourists, traders, shoppers, buskers’
coins clink; jewellers’ trays glint diamond.
Resting square in England’s green palm:
Field and forest etched by Welsh hills,
face-up till dark turns out clubs, pubs:
“I would walk the Walls at night.”
Julia D McGuinness