The Duke of Nowhere
.
I was the son of the Duke of Nowhere.
Nowhere was home. The first sound I remember
was engines sawing steam, the butt
and squeal of wagons full of clunk
shunted cruelly. Lifted to the window sill
I had my first sight of our exile
as I thought: Here, me,
watching . . . There, trains going away . . .
*
He was living incognito
but his secret was safe with me.
I was the solitary heir to everything
he never once mentioned. I guessed
from his brooding, his whole silent days,
it must be vast. The lost estates
grew vaster in the weeks,
then months, he went away and stayed.
*
Beyond the roofs, beyond the dockyard wall
were cranes, then the edge of the world.
On a clear day I could watch grey frigates
climb it and slip over. I woke one night
to singing in the streets that suddenly
grew small as all the hooters of the fleet
brawled up together, blurting
Home . . . as if any such place
existed, over the horizon, anywhere.
by Philip Gross
from Changes of Address: Poems 1980-1998
Publisher: Bloodaxe, Tarset, 2001
ISBN: 1-85224-572-7