My name is Harry Collins and I am an undergraduate student at the University of Exeter. My submission is a poem that explores the relationship we have with our planet and the class divide, whilst also retaining elements of the original Causley poem such as the idea of travelling to a new life, and featuring characters that are stuck in a certain point in time.

It waits for us somewhere beyond this metallic landfill,
Past the mud and the metal.
A New Eden, a new beginning:

The boastful business bureaucrat steps onto the boat,
Barging- trampling- across a staircase of souls,
Crushing them–
With golden soles.
The weight of success too great not to gloat,
He’s an old man, in the same old suit
with the familiar stench that pollutes,
And he’ll be the same old man again,
even when he sails away atop the misery and the mud,
To do it all again to a New Eden.

The worn-down worker awakens with a wish,
To crawl in the footsteps of giants,
Through the sludge and decay,

                                        So high they could taste the sweet, fresh air,

                                        and dream of the green on the horizon

            And climb above it all                                                                           Crushed

And climb                                                                                                                Crushed

To climb                                                                                                                         Crushed
A dismantled soul, beaten down until they were back in the sludge, beneath the air, bereft of life.

In Eden, back where the worker was always meant to be.
At least, at last- in the filth, they can be free
Here he stands, admiring his endeavours into extinction,
Preparing for more entrepenurial extermination,
In the name of building a New Eden.

Here they lie, stuck beneath those golden soles, like forgotten chewing gum,
Used and disposed in an instant, fighting a game of zero-sum,
Crossing is impossible.
They know what will become of a New Eden.

The views expressed in submissions to The Maker are those of the authors and, therefore, the Charles Causley Trust is not responsible for these views or statements. The Charles Causley Trust does not own the texts published on The Maker. Each piece is submitted voluntarily by writers who wish to informally publish their creative work through The Charles Causley Trust. Each submission is subject to edits and amendments by the editors of the online literary blog which will then be negotiated with the author before approval and upload to the website.