You’ve heard of Burnham Beeches,
Or the plain of Salisbury Plain
With heaps of giant stones,
Of the rugged Cumbria lakeland
Complete with Wrynose Bottom
And fells covered in sheep;
But have you ever ever been
To the wild wilderness of Dungeness.

There more shingle here than ever
Arnold counted on Dover Beach,
There’s tiny clapped out houses
Who’s sides and doors are bleached,
There’s a chain link fence for miles
Not fencing but lying down
There’s bottle tops and bottoms,
And a lost boot no one found,
A tiny railway station for tiny railway trains,
And flowers bloom in miniature of course;
Scabious, pink, campion and gorse,
There are tracks that criss cross the shingle
And as we rattle past
We wondered at those folks lost
Who wandered from the path
Into the windswept wilderness of wild Dungeness.

There’s cabbage of the sea sort
And hidden artists sheds
Along decorated paths,
An horizon marked by ferries
Going somewhere else.
A flag that flutters bravely
A pair of lighthouse towers,
A hardy little garden with ragged little flowers.
The sky is domed and lovely,
The sun has its own pups:
And all the Ewes are waiting
For a visit from their Tups.

Do not miss it sticking off the end of Kent:
The Magnox now dismantled,
The road curves round a bend.
The wild Saxon Shore curves on,
By stones and shells it’s marked
And if you tread along it the scenery is stark.
Your way is found by guesswork
And so is the route back.
It is the wild wilderness by way of Dungeness.

JAL 01.11.2017

Warning: this is an epic poem about the British landscape. Do not study it for your GCSE coursework. Just enjoy the anarchy and chaos it contains.