Bert Flitcroft, "From Standing Stones to the Stars"

Bert Flitcroft was born and brought up in Lancashire but now lives in the Midlands. He now has four collections of poetry published: Singing Puccini at the Kitchen Sink, Thought-Apples, Just Asking, and Seeing the Light. Recently he has made available a fifth, a "new and selected" entitled From Standing Stones to the Stars: History and Science: 30 Poems.

He is an Arts Council prize-winning poet, was Poet in Residence at the Southwell Poetry Festival and has performed at a number of leading national festivals including The Edinburgh International Book Festival. He was Staffordshire Poet Laureate 2015–17 and curated the on-line Staffordshire Poetry Collection. 

He has worked as resident poet with one of our "National Treasures," The Wedgwood Collection at the V&A; as resident poet with the prestigious R.I.B.A. exhibition "The Road Less Travelled"; and recently as part of the University of Keele project "Labelling the Museum."

Bert offers a professional mentoring service and has a long and successful history of running workshops and giving readings, not just to local poetry groups but in libraries, arts centres, gardens, galleries, museums. His website is here. 

About From Standing Stones to the Stars, by Bert Flitcroft

This collection  includes a few new poems alongside poems published in Bert’s first four collections. Glancing through these he realised how many of them reflect his long-standing interest in History and Science, and the variety in form and structure this has involved. This collection is designed to appeal to a wider-than-usual audience as well as the general poetry reader. Many readers will find this collection both a pleasure and a rewarding, if occasionally challenging, experience.

From From Standing Stones to the Stars

Re-reading Jane Austen

in the age of quantum entanglement

It is a truth universally acknowledged

that a single heavenly body, in possession

of space, must be in want of a soul mate. 

Between such bodies there is always gravity. 

And who is to say this isn't a form of love?

Whole galaxies may be holding hands, 

finding themselves entangled

at a subatomic level, sharing words of love. 

And, for all we know, causing each other 

both joy and heartache.

Let us imagine two heavenly bodies

and name them Elizabeth and Darcy,

separate them by unacknowledged forces

a physicist might label Pride and Prejudice.

Two planets, mere particles, seemingly 

destined to circle around each other forever.

There is much that is mysterious about love,

but two particles can exist in many places

at the same time yet be connected, 

and, though separate, can influence and refine 

each other's behaviour.

So who is to deny that our two particles,

one in a high-waisted white gown

and one in a tailcoat with white cravat,

could be entangled at this subatomic level,

discovering that they share an affinity

created by a chance encounter at a ball

or an innocent visit with an aunt.

In the light of quantum entanglement

Jane Austen was much wiser than we think.

With such knowledge would the tale

of Romeo and his Juliet, two universal 

star-crossed lovers, have to end as it did?

Or Abelard and Heloise suffer such a fate?

Intensive care

Back from theatre, again, the room quiet 

but for your breathing and the syllables 

of monitors and voices in the corridor,

your eyes closed in opiate delirium 

you whispered, "I’m being chased 

around the room by a mashed potato."

And, after a silence, "Is that you, dad?"

and you squeezed my hand.

To see your pale flesh turn red and swell,

a doctor's pen daily marking out the fronts,

was to witness Life reduced 

to mortal combat between microbes.

If only Love could be a friendly bacteria

we could drip-feed into veins.

But for now at least, thank God for surgeons 

and men of science, and Fleming.

And yes, thank God for love.

Had you gone before your time, the natural 

order disturbed, I would have needed 

your absence, the silences, made bearable; 

convinced myself you were still somewhere:

in the low clouds, your voice in the wind,

your hands part of the warm rain.

Heaven would be good. That’s what it’s for.