Summer Poetry and Prose submissions
The Summer rumbles on at pace. Week four has now taken place and our appreciation of Anne Caldwell's The Language of Now grows week on week. We have now read and discussed the following poems: Congleton to Catalonia, Stranraer, The Poetics of Space, Auntie Margaret, Madeira in February, Learning How to Bog Walk, Mutability and Spoil. Occasionally, one or more of the members will throw up arms in response to the quality of such poems: how is it possible to produce writing of such quality? But the group perseveres and has its own successes as the following proves. The combination of reading, discussion and having a go yourself is proving to be formidable. But read on and find out for yourself.
Week Four Homework
Recovering from the Heartbreak
So here we go again.
I ask myself if I can stand any more heartbreak.
“Myself” answers back with “Be careful, hold back, test the water, don't say too much”. “Do I say too much?... Do I say too much… too little?” I'm scared. I know I'm very silent, and I wonder what you think of me.
I have tried several times to start again, meet someone new, move on, but each time it's a disaster. I can't read your thoughts, but I worry about what you must think of me.
The truth is that I can't stand any more hurt. Is it all worth it? Still…, silence also has meaning, just as "doing nothing" has and also has its own consequences.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea as to why I am so diffident. So, I will be courageous and tell you my doubts and fears.
You will be the only person I have ever confided in; I am so vulnerable. However, I mustn't leap ahead.
A relationship is not just my choice. I will have courage and live in hope, and will share my heart with you. It is up to you.
I know that this decision is risky, but I am resolved to go ahead. I just hope you don't break my heart again
Janet
Adamas
The child’s world is brittle, sometimes brutal but her dreams are free flight. The sky lent them to her. Swallows swirl for her. Stars ignite her. She has diamonds on the soles of her shoes, firing steps, sparking, singing a song only known to her. They tell her shining stories when she is in the dark. Her scuffed shoes sleeping under her bed were embedded with a night sky of brilliance, scattered amongst worn soles. Pure carbon. An offering of invincibility. She feels the billions of years, they pulse in her, battling the hurt. When the complicit door closes and she hears the footsteps fading……. She has diamonds on the soles of shoes.
Deborah
Thursday Collection
You left on Tuesday, between the rent going out and the meter taking its last tenner. Very you: goodbye on Economy 7. You took the records, the good saucepan, three shirts I’d ironed badly enough for you to notice. Left the landing light on till morning, your library fine and half a packet of Hobnobs clipped shut. You always hated waste.
On the table, four lines in birthday-card handwriting. No blame. No hard feelings. Two sensible adults. Apparently. I read it twice, then folded it under the short leg of the kitchen table. It still rocks, but less.
The 110 came at nine, seven minutes late. You’d have mentioned it. Whether you caught it hardly mattered. Your version was ready: two good people, wrong time, nobody’s fault. Almost kind enough to leave me out.
By Thursday, razors, dead batteries, takeaway menus and the card calling me your always were in a black bag. The council says batteries go to the recycling point. I could hear you saying it. Put them back in the drawer.
I kept the blue mug. Not for love. Fits my hand and cost four quid.
Months later, the wall where your coat hung is cleaner than the rest. I bought a magnolia tester pot at Wilko before it shut. It looked right there. At home, no. It’s under the sink.
The hook holds shopping bags now. Six at last count. At the till, the cashier asks if I need another. I say yes before you can.
Tim
Willin’
Nah, I’m sorry, I don’t buy into all this trucker mythology. You come over as if you’re some contemporary American icon, an outlaw for our times. But, let’s be honest, you’re really nothing more than a petty criminal. In fact, not such a petty one when you list human trafficking among your accomplishments. And you boast proudly of smuggling cigarettes across the border and overloading your truck so that you have to take detours to avoid the weighbridges. I certainly wouldn’t want to be sharing a road with a chancer like you.
So, you’ve suffered from bad weather conditions in carrying out your job. Does that somehow make you unique? Try telling that to the oil rig workers, the merchant seamen, the firefighters.
To make matters worse, you recount your exploits as if you’re a latter-day minstrel, a troubadour of the highway. All you’ve done is to select a few exotic sounding place names that happen to alliterate and strung them together with a series of banal and predictable rhymes.
And what the hell are “whites” anyway?
Howard
Run to You
The song in mind is taken from the film The Body Guard.
I first heard it in a theatre production for ‘Hen Parties’…
To which I was invited by my middle daughter ‘ one of three’
who was about to be married. This was following the passing
of her father, Seventy years in the wake of our nuptials.
For the eulogy Kim wrote a poem that referred to him as
A Galleon in full sail attended by an all female crew.
Moving forward ten years if I ever hear the music ,opening
bars, on TV or radio, my tears would scuttle a battle ship.
I want to run to you, in the lyrics, simply cripples my breathing
pattern.
Mostly, I sail along emotion completely strapped up.
Even before the song begins something weird happens
to the pit of my stomach. Followed by the heart, who
shows it has a personal space and pipes a tune.
It yearns for the comfort of a striped, Chanel dressing gown
to snuggle, and feel the the gentle smurr of a kiss on the forehead.
Perfumed in an atmosphere of calm.
Then, salty tears bathe the memory of our seventy three years
bound together at the mast.
June
The Rain has Stopped
I'm not very good with lyrics, I just like the feel of the music, the rhythm and the tunes. I sing along though - when I'm on my own.
The windscreen wipers swipe the motorway grime from side to side leaving dirty rivulets vibrating down. The egg sandwich sits forlornly on the seat beside me. Wind Turbines are stagnant with no wind to push the rain away. A magpie flies low over flat fields devoid of crops. The Humber, a mauve brown stripe winds alongside. I am pewter grey, soft and malleable. I hear the plaintive squeaking strings of the acoustic guitar and my lips tremble as I try to sing....
"Are you there? Do you read me? I don't feel you anymore."
Instead of words, audible and clear, a strange gutteral sound like ketchup erupting from a thumped sauce bottle blunts out. Eyes sting and blur but the sobs are unstoppable. I feel like I'm being scraped from the sides of a pan with a wooden spoon. A roux sauce congealing. A thick splodge of unfinished Bechamel. I try to pick up the words again...
"Everything is done. Nothing left at all"
I dry my eyes and pretend I'm okay.
Years later, more often than not, I find myself singing the next track on the album - almost without tears...
"I'm here and I'm on the mend, my friend"
The rain has stopped.
Anne
Summer 1986
The weeks before had narrowed to an arrowhead of exams. Now the sky has widened, become an ocean of possibility. These are days of light stretching out through evenings, of windows thrown open, ‘Walk of Life’ spilling out onto lawns prickly with new growth. The red brick buildings reach up, throw shadows beyond us as we lounge in groups on the grass. We drink beer and cheap wine, light cigarettes, watch smoke curl upwards and disappear into the flat sky. We try to remember what brought us here three years before, what plans our younger selves had about our futures. Someone suggests a game. We play for a while, our hearts not in it. We talk into the night; our words flutter, become moths, are drawn to the light of the new day, turn to dust. We stand as at a silent signal, as if it’s been arranged, collect empty bottles and cans, carry them back to rooms where mute walls are already stripped of posters and photographs. Where the silence pushes us towards the door.
Lisa
Dear Sue
Thanks for remembering and asking me how I am. Well, I might have said I was alright but I’m not really. I can’t help thinking all the time about our Billy and it’s hard to believe it’s ten years ago.
I look around and see people with their worn-out faces going places, as the song goes, same old things day in day out. They can’t all be living this predictable life like me? I feel so disconnected from that happy, exciting time we had when we were young.
Sorry to sound so gloomy, Sue, but I’m going nowhere. There’s no tomorrow for me. I just go through the motions every day. It’s all meaningless and I’m just stuck in my thoughts. The world is mad.
Everyone else seems to be able to carry on and cope with what might have happened to them. But how can the world continue for me as if nothing had happened? Then I realise the world hasn’t changed. It’s me.
Do you remember that day in biology class? We were dissecting a bull’s eye, aqueous humour squirting all over us and giggling our heads off, when Miss Ettock suddenly burst in and called me into the Head’s office where my Mum was sobbing and waiting to tell me about our Billy’s terrible accident.
And it was all my fault.
After that, nothing made sense any more. The world keeps spinning but it’s all mad. Mad.
With love
Judy
You Could Have Told Me Yourself
The snap of the snare, the ominous repetition of four notes on a bass, a shriek of brass and the anguished opening line, I bet you wondered how I knew, and we’re in, in to the business of loving and dying. Desertion whispered about by girls giggling
together, and tossed away by disdainful macho guys; the taunting backing vocals impinging on the melody line. No consolation here for anyone stuck in the middle, anyone who had pledged to love the most but who was due to be dumped by his girl in favour of a nameless guy his girl had known before. It’s enough to make you lose your mind and take the vocal register higher and higher. As Sam and Otis knew, the trick is to make it sound effortless, which is what Marvin does; the art which disguises the art, but can’t mask the pain. There’s no hope of being told face to face: Honey, honey, I know that you’re lettin’ me go, the word is out and there’s no way of stemming the agony of deceit and the poison coursing along the grapevine.
John
Recovering from the Heartbreak
So here we go again.
I ask myself if I can stand any more heartbreak.
“Myself” answers back with “Be careful, hold back, test the water, don't say too much”. “Do I say too much?... Do I say too much… too little?” I'm scared. I know I'm very silent, and I wonder what you think of me.
I have tried several times to start again, meet someone new, move on, but each time it's a disaster. I can't read your thoughts, but I worry about what you must think of me.
The truth is that I can't stand any more hurt. Is it all worth it? Still…, silence also has meaning, just as "doing nothing" has and also has its own consequences.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea as to why I am so diffident. So, I will be courageous and tell you my doubts and fears.
You will be the only person I have ever confided in; I am so vulnerable. However, I mustn't leap ahead.
A relationship is not just my choice. I will have courage and live in hope, and will share my heart with you. It is up to you.
I know that this decision is risky, but I am resolved to go ahead. I just hope you don't break my heart again
Janet
Adamas
The child’s world is brittle, sometimes brutal but her dreams are free flight. The sky lent them to her. Swallows swirl for her. Stars ignite her. She has diamonds on the soles of her shoes, firing steps, sparking, singing a song only known to her. They tell her shining stories when she is in the dark. Her scuffed shoes sleeping under her bed were embedded with a night sky of brilliance, scattered amongst worn soles. Pure carbon. An offering of invincibility. She feels the billions of years, they pulse in her, battling the hurt. When the complicit door closes and she hears the footsteps fading……. She has diamonds on the soles of shoes.
Deborah
Thursday Collection
You left on Tuesday, between the rent going out and the meter taking its last tenner. Very you: goodbye on Economy 7. You took the records, the good saucepan, three shirts I’d ironed badly enough for you to notice. Left the landing light on till morning, your library fine and half a packet of Hobnobs clipped shut. You always hated waste.
On the table, four lines in birthday-card handwriting. No blame. No hard feelings. Two sensible adults. Apparently. I read it twice, then folded it under the short leg of the kitchen table. It still rocks, but less.
The 110 came at nine, seven minutes late. You’d have mentioned it. Whether you caught it hardly mattered. Your version was ready: two good people, wrong time, nobody’s fault. Almost kind enough to leave me out.
By Thursday, razors, dead batteries, takeaway menus and the card calling me your always were in a black bag. The council says batteries go to the recycling point. I could hear you saying it. Put them back in the drawer.
I kept the blue mug. Not for love. Fits my hand and cost four quid.
Months later, the wall where your coat hung is cleaner than the rest. I bought a magnolia tester pot at Wilko before it shut. It looked right there. At home, no. It’s under the sink.
The hook holds shopping bags now. Six at last count. At the till, the cashier asks if I need another. I say yes before you can.
Tim
Willin’
Nah, I’m sorry, I don’t buy into all this trucker mythology. You come over as if you’re some contemporary American icon, an outlaw for our times. But, let’s be honest, you’re really nothing more than a petty criminal. In fact, not such a petty one when you list human trafficking among your accomplishments. And you boast proudly of smuggling cigarettes across the border and overloading your truck so that you have to take detours to avoid the weighbridges. I certainly wouldn’t want to be sharing a road with a chancer like you.
So, you’ve suffered from bad weather conditions in carrying out your job. Does that somehow make you unique? Try telling that to the oil rig workers, the merchant seamen, the firefighters.
To make matters worse, you recount your exploits as if you’re a latter-day minstrel, a troubadour of the highway. All you’ve done is to select a few exotic sounding place names that happen to alliterate and strung them together with a series of banal and predictable rhymes.
And what the hell are “whites” anyway?
Howard
Run to You
The song in mind is taken from the film The Body Guard.
I first heard it in a theatre production for ‘Hen Parties’…
To which I was invited by my middle daughter ‘ one of three’
who was about to be married. This was following the passing
of her father, Seventy years in the wake of our nuptials.
For the eulogy Kim wrote a poem that referred to him as
A Galleon in full sail attended by an all female crew.
Moving forward ten years if I ever hear the music ,opening
bars, on TV or radio, my tears would scuttle a battle ship.
I want to run to you, in the lyrics, simply cripples my breathing
pattern.
Mostly, I sail along emotion completely strapped up.
Even before the song begins something weird happens
to the pit of my stomach. Followed by the heart, who
shows it has a personal space and pipes a tune.
It yearns for the comfort of a striped, Chanel dressing gown
to snuggle, and feel the the gentle smurr of a kiss on the forehead.
Perfumed in an atmosphere of calm.
Then, salty tears bathe the memory of our seventy three years
bound together at the mast.
June
The Rain has Stopped
I'm not very good with lyrics, I just like the feel of the music, the rhythm and the tunes. I sing along though - when I'm on my own.
The windscreen wipers swipe the motorway grime from side to side leaving dirty rivulets vibrating down. The egg sandwich sits forlornly on the seat beside me. Wind Turbines are stagnant with no wind to push the rain away. A magpie flies low over flat fields devoid of crops. The Humber, a mauve brown stripe winds alongside. I am pewter grey, soft and malleable. I hear the plaintive squeaking strings of the acoustic guitar and my lips tremble as I try to sing....
"Are you there? Do you read me? I don't feel you anymore."
Instead of words, audible and clear, a strange gutteral sound like ketchup erupting from a thumped sauce bottle blunts out. Eyes sting and blur but the sobs are unstoppable. I feel like I'm being scraped from the sides of a pan with a wooden spoon. A roux sauce congealing. A thick splodge of unfinished Bechamel. I try to pick up the words again...
"Everything is done. Nothing left at all"
I dry my eyes and pretend I'm okay.
Years later, more often than not, I find myself singing the next track on the album - almost without tears...
"I'm here and I'm on the mend, my friend"
The rain has stopped.
Anne
Summer 1986
The weeks before had narrowed to an arrowhead of exams. Now the sky has widened, become an ocean of possibility. These are days of light stretching out through evenings, of windows thrown open, ‘Walk of Life’ spilling out onto lawns prickly with new growth. The red brick buildings reach up, throw shadows beyond us as we lounge in groups on the grass. We drink beer and cheap wine, light cigarettes, watch smoke curl upwards and disappear into the flat sky. We try to remember what brought us here three years before, what plans our younger selves had about our futures. Someone suggests a game. We play for a while, our hearts not in it. We talk into the night; our words flutter, become moths, are drawn to the light of the new day, turn to dust. We stand as at a silent signal, as if it’s been arranged, collect empty bottles and cans, carry them back to rooms where mute walls are already stripped of posters and photographs. Where the silence pushes us towards the door.
Lisa
Dear Sue
Thanks for remembering and asking me how I am. Well, I might have said I was alright but I’m not really. I can’t help thinking all the time about our Billy and it’s hard to believe it’s ten years ago.
I look around and see people with their worn-out faces going places, as the song goes, same old things day in day out. They can’t all be living this predictable life like me? I feel so disconnected from that happy, exciting time we had when we were young.
Sorry to sound so gloomy, Sue, but I’m going nowhere. There’s no tomorrow for me. I just go through the motions every day. It’s all meaningless and I’m just stuck in my thoughts. The world is mad.
Everyone else seems to be able to carry on and cope with what might have happened to them. But how can the world continue for me as if nothing had happened? Then I realise the world hasn’t changed. It’s me.
Do you remember that day in biology class? We were dissecting a bull’s eye, aqueous humour squirting all over us and giggling our heads off, when Miss Ettock suddenly burst in and called me into the Head’s office where my Mum was sobbing and waiting to tell me about our Billy’s terrible accident.
And it was all my fault.
After that, nothing made sense any more. The world keeps spinning but it’s all mad. Mad.
With love
Judy
You Could Have Told Me Yourself
The snap of the snare, the ominous repetition of four notes on a bass, a shriek of brass and the anguished opening line, I bet you wondered how I knew, and we’re in, in to the business of loving and dying. Desertion whispered about by girls giggling
together, and tossed away by disdainful macho guys; the taunting backing vocals impinging on the melody line. No consolation here for anyone stuck in the middle, anyone who had pledged to love the most but who was due to be dumped by his girl in favour of a nameless guy his girl had known before. It’s enough to make you lose your mind and take the vocal register higher and higher. As Sam and Otis knew, the trick is to make it sound effortless, which is what Marvin does; the art which disguises the art, but can’t mask the pain. There’s no hope of being told face to face: Honey, honey, I know that you’re lettin’ me go, the word is out and there’s no way of stemming the agony of deceit and the poison coursing along the grapevine.
John
Week Three: Thursday 6th August
What a really enjoyable Week Three! We are settling into a pattern of reading, discussing and sharing these poems, and the poems just keep on giving: beautifully crafted, highly atmospheric and, it would seem, inspirational. As if by osmosis a concise, acute, vivid style has emerged into our own written work and we are now in the position of added several more poems into our roll call and generated some very compelling pieces of our own writing. The poems we have added to our list are: View from the Parsonage, Lindow Man, China, The Language of Now, Sonic Chatter, Shopping in the Time of Covid, Liturgy and Gold. As if this wasn't sufficient, we also read and discussed a very intriguing piece called Lupine by Mark Haddon and we used it as the basis of our homework task which was to write out a set of instructions to someone or something which is about to change form. The results follow:
Arboreal
Be a tree
May the seeds from which you spring find a fertile spot for you to send down roots and draw up food and water.
Stand firm above ground but sink below the surface.
Be still, unless the wind is blowing. Feel your branches reaching up to the sky.
You must be patient. Slowness is everything.
You will breathe in slowly. The longer you take, the more your wood will be strong.
You must take in those human-made fumes and you will give back life-enhancing gases.
You must drink fully when it rains.
You will be kind. Birds and animals will shelter in your branches.
But you must be prepared to let go of your leaves in Autumn and wait patiently for new growth in Spring.
You will be flexible and bend with strong winds and storms.
Above all you must be tolerant. Dogs will urinate against you, kids will climb up and break your branches and steal your fruit. Some people might even hug you.
Remember you must scatter seeds for the future.
You will learn stillness, patience, kindness, flexibility and tolerance. Be a tree.
Judy
Re-formed
You will become a member of Reform UK and remain so for one parliamentary session. You will not be able to talk sense. Bigotry will be your only language. Your eyesight will be enhanced. You will have the ability to distinguish subtle differences in skin pigmentation and will be able to spot an inflatable dinghy crossing the English Channel from a distance of at least fifteen miles.
You must not apply logic or reason to any situation with which you are confronted. You will lose the ability to distinguish between the Union Flag and the Flag of St George. You will sustain yourself with blind prejudice and stereotyping.
You will find yourself hunted down by crypto-currency billionaires who will seek to corrupt you with massive donations. You will be unable to say no to such sustenance.
Unthinking rage will become your second skin. You must hunt in baying packs and must always misuse the word woke. You will be laughed at but will retain the belief that you will have the last laugh.
If you survive for one parliamentary session your party membership will be transferred to Restore Britain and our immigrant king will abolish parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom.
And then, finally, you will understand.
Howard
Crossing boundaries
Peel off your familiar layers, lay them precisely on the chair. See how they hang pink and lifeless in the half-light. Underneath, you are tawny-brown pelt sparking to bronze in moonlight, in your nocturnal world of stitched fields and wild grasses. Your black-tipped ears lengthen in the quiet of the night, balance the moon between them, gather distant sounds in their furred crescents; a bird breaking a brittle twig, a fox pawing dried leaves, a soft-bodied animal worrying blades with sharpened teeth. Your amber eyes see into shadows, pierce the gloom, whiskers tremble through tall grass, set stalks quivering, sweep a darkened passage through an opening in a hedge. Your spine lengthens to a coiled spring, legs gather beneath you, release you along ploughed furrows, paws soft and fur-felted on dry earth, until quick turn, zig-zag. Stillness. On a branch an owl watches as your nose twitches the air, feels the heavy scent of feathers and bark, prickles of clover and dandelion as you run along the margins of fields and ditches, under fences, until on a drystone wall you are silhouetted against the moon.
Hare returns to the village and the room where a pink hairless pelt lays lifeless on a chair. The moon picks out silver and bronze in hare’s fur as she turns away and her stride lengthens into fields and moors, outpaces the chasing night.
Lisa
Lupine
I would like you to know that it was all so real. A verdant
canopy of forest, white slanting through dappled shade
over an ancient well. Where I awoke to see my face reflected
in the water… Surely not my face… A wolf’s face…Not even a
likeness. With sharp eyes, totally alert. Whispering in howls.
Stunned, I followed him on padded feet, to a clearing. Joining
a pack of other wolves, I was accepted without question. Not even
a sniff, by one who was surely the coach. I had entered a game
of Tug-of-War. Pulling the white bones of a deer recently killed.
Demolished.
They wrestled with me. Scary. I was anxious. It would have been
easy to take out an eye with claws that slipped out from under
my paws.
I ran with them to a hole in the ground, concealed by brush and
leaves, like satin trimmings gleaming wet. Natural camouflage,
protecting four pups who sucked from a placid mother.
I realised then, that I too, came under their care because
of my timidity.
I felt privileged to be part of the pack. The love they have for each
other is disarmingly honest I found this endearing.
Then danger. Suddenly they sniffed out an awareness of hunters.
Counting the number of sniff away, I was afraid for them and myself
Now, looking through the tree bars at the know-it-all moon, when you
found me, head bleeding by the stone, I had fallen on by the well.
I have become myself again…with a wolf inside.
June
Approval Needed
You will become a Self-Check-Out.
First, give the machine your hands. It has been waiting beneath the strip lights, patient as winter. Lay one palm on the scales; teach the other to accept cards. Bolt your shoes through the lino and let your knees lock. Your middle opens into a bagging area. The body has always been somewhere to put things. Now give it your face. Slide one eye under glass until it shines red. Narrow your mouth to a receipt slot. File the North from your voice, the wet stone, the bus-stop wind, your mother calling tea, and leave only the bright, placeless sentences. Please scan your first item. Set your heart behind the barcode reader. It knows the flowers cost thirty pence. It does not know which grave. A boy you once taught brings four cans of lager. APPROVAL NEEDED rises across your face. He looks through you for someone authorised. You try to say his name. Instead: Place item in bagging area. At closing, the lights go out aisle by aisle, like a town surrendering its windows. The cleaner moves around you. Trolleys sleep nose-to-tail behind the doors. Beyond them, the car park fills with rain. Keep speaking: Assistance is on its way. Say it until the words lose their edges. Say it to the bread, the flowers, the dark. Say it after everyone has gone.
Then, finally, you will understand.
Tim
Chimpanzee
You will become a chimpanzee for a month. I expect you are looking forward to this. A life that seems so free in the forest, up in the trees, smelling the damp leaves after the recent rain. It seems so attractive to be living each day as the sun travels across the sky. However, I will give you some practical hints to help you. Don't worry about the climate being hot and sticky, and you are rather hairy, but you are adapted to this, so you won't notice. You will have new skills and climb trees with ease. You have strong arms which are probably more useful than your legs. Perhaps your arms are a little long, as they touch the ground when you walk. Still, they will help with your balance. You will spend a lot of time gathering food. Fruits will be your favourites. Don't be choosy, food is food. Termites are very tasty once you have learnt to dig them out with a stick. You will make a sleeping raft in the trees where you can be safe. The nights are not quiet in the forest, and this will be a continuous background to your dreams.
My special advice to you is to pick up the rules of the social group and then cooperate with others at all times, or they will become noisy and fractious. I advise you to cultivate peace by grooming your neighbours and remember sometimes to submit. If you are a female, you will carry your baby around all the time, no break from motherhood. If you are a male, you will have to compete with others and then face the challenge of rivals. If you are a youngster, you will have time for lively play, if a little rough at times. Please remember life can be dangerous and you have to be vigilant, so stick with the group, protect the group.
And finally, you will understand that this is not the time to have ideas of being an individual.
Janet
Allotted Time
You will become Death for one year.
You will be a quiet being in a blank, bland world, flat lined grey. You will have no physical needs, no night, or day. Draped with power, no droning accountability. Choices and decisions are yours. Nothing will hinder you.
No names will be spoken, they will be recorded in bloodless block capital letters and then crossed out. People will rage against you, desire you, even choose you. You will never be loved. Watching, waiting, vigilant..there will be no malevolence in your arrival.
You will be alone. No child will lean close for a wondrous story or wriggle free for the wild animal dance. No slow first sip of wine. No blackbird bathing, scattering stars. There will be no cherished company round the old, old, table with scars and imprinted life.
Who will be saved? The insignificant women struggling to breathe, nobody will miss her. The young man dreaming of his unborn child. The accident waiting to happen...’He simply stepped out’ The pulsing power is addictive it flows grey through the veins.
When your year is complete, there will be no quiet return.
Deborah
Green Robed Senator
You will become a Green Robed Senator for a thousand lunar months and beyond. You will automatically assume presence and majesty. You must immediately develop contact with your peers; your subterranean, fundamental bonding. Together you will care, nourish and grow. You will bear your own eco-system hosting the tiniest life forms, insects, mosses, small mammals and birds; the predators and the prey. You will trap and imprison poisons. You will be adored and despoiled.
Beware of the Beings with their advance thought patterns, their command of speech and assumed supremacy. Some, like the poet who coined your new title, will laud you and acknowledge your role. Others will call you tall and mighty but see you only as a crop, a source of weaponry and war boats.
Be lenient with the Young Beings though, those on the verge of learning, living and loving. They will play, tease and court below your branches. You must point these young ones towards the Natural World and how the future is held in a mutual, delicate balance.
Give them guidance before they score their initials across your heart.
John
What a really enjoyable Week Three! We are settling into a pattern of reading, discussing and sharing these poems, and the poems just keep on giving: beautifully crafted, highly atmospheric and, it would seem, inspirational. As if by osmosis a concise, acute, vivid style has emerged into our own written work and we are now in the position of added several more poems into our roll call and generated some very compelling pieces of our own writing. The poems we have added to our list are: View from the Parsonage, Lindow Man, China, The Language of Now, Sonic Chatter, Shopping in the Time of Covid, Liturgy and Gold. As if this wasn't sufficient, we also read and discussed a very intriguing piece called Lupine by Mark Haddon and we used it as the basis of our homework task which was to write out a set of instructions to someone or something which is about to change form. The results follow:
Arboreal
Be a tree
May the seeds from which you spring find a fertile spot for you to send down roots and draw up food and water.
Stand firm above ground but sink below the surface.
Be still, unless the wind is blowing. Feel your branches reaching up to the sky.
You must be patient. Slowness is everything.
You will breathe in slowly. The longer you take, the more your wood will be strong.
You must take in those human-made fumes and you will give back life-enhancing gases.
You must drink fully when it rains.
You will be kind. Birds and animals will shelter in your branches.
But you must be prepared to let go of your leaves in Autumn and wait patiently for new growth in Spring.
You will be flexible and bend with strong winds and storms.
Above all you must be tolerant. Dogs will urinate against you, kids will climb up and break your branches and steal your fruit. Some people might even hug you.
Remember you must scatter seeds for the future.
You will learn stillness, patience, kindness, flexibility and tolerance. Be a tree.
Judy
Re-formed
You will become a member of Reform UK and remain so for one parliamentary session. You will not be able to talk sense. Bigotry will be your only language. Your eyesight will be enhanced. You will have the ability to distinguish subtle differences in skin pigmentation and will be able to spot an inflatable dinghy crossing the English Channel from a distance of at least fifteen miles.
You must not apply logic or reason to any situation with which you are confronted. You will lose the ability to distinguish between the Union Flag and the Flag of St George. You will sustain yourself with blind prejudice and stereotyping.
You will find yourself hunted down by crypto-currency billionaires who will seek to corrupt you with massive donations. You will be unable to say no to such sustenance.
Unthinking rage will become your second skin. You must hunt in baying packs and must always misuse the word woke. You will be laughed at but will retain the belief that you will have the last laugh.
If you survive for one parliamentary session your party membership will be transferred to Restore Britain and our immigrant king will abolish parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom.
And then, finally, you will understand.
Howard
Crossing boundaries
Peel off your familiar layers, lay them precisely on the chair. See how they hang pink and lifeless in the half-light. Underneath, you are tawny-brown pelt sparking to bronze in moonlight, in your nocturnal world of stitched fields and wild grasses. Your black-tipped ears lengthen in the quiet of the night, balance the moon between them, gather distant sounds in their furred crescents; a bird breaking a brittle twig, a fox pawing dried leaves, a soft-bodied animal worrying blades with sharpened teeth. Your amber eyes see into shadows, pierce the gloom, whiskers tremble through tall grass, set stalks quivering, sweep a darkened passage through an opening in a hedge. Your spine lengthens to a coiled spring, legs gather beneath you, release you along ploughed furrows, paws soft and fur-felted on dry earth, until quick turn, zig-zag. Stillness. On a branch an owl watches as your nose twitches the air, feels the heavy scent of feathers and bark, prickles of clover and dandelion as you run along the margins of fields and ditches, under fences, until on a drystone wall you are silhouetted against the moon.
Hare returns to the village and the room where a pink hairless pelt lays lifeless on a chair. The moon picks out silver and bronze in hare’s fur as she turns away and her stride lengthens into fields and moors, outpaces the chasing night.
Lisa
Lupine
I would like you to know that it was all so real. A verdant
canopy of forest, white slanting through dappled shade
over an ancient well. Where I awoke to see my face reflected
in the water… Surely not my face… A wolf’s face…Not even a
likeness. With sharp eyes, totally alert. Whispering in howls.
Stunned, I followed him on padded feet, to a clearing. Joining
a pack of other wolves, I was accepted without question. Not even
a sniff, by one who was surely the coach. I had entered a game
of Tug-of-War. Pulling the white bones of a deer recently killed.
Demolished.
They wrestled with me. Scary. I was anxious. It would have been
easy to take out an eye with claws that slipped out from under
my paws.
I ran with them to a hole in the ground, concealed by brush and
leaves, like satin trimmings gleaming wet. Natural camouflage,
protecting four pups who sucked from a placid mother.
I realised then, that I too, came under their care because
of my timidity.
I felt privileged to be part of the pack. The love they have for each
other is disarmingly honest I found this endearing.
Then danger. Suddenly they sniffed out an awareness of hunters.
Counting the number of sniff away, I was afraid for them and myself
Now, looking through the tree bars at the know-it-all moon, when you
found me, head bleeding by the stone, I had fallen on by the well.
I have become myself again…with a wolf inside.
June
Approval Needed
You will become a Self-Check-Out.
First, give the machine your hands. It has been waiting beneath the strip lights, patient as winter. Lay one palm on the scales; teach the other to accept cards. Bolt your shoes through the lino and let your knees lock. Your middle opens into a bagging area. The body has always been somewhere to put things. Now give it your face. Slide one eye under glass until it shines red. Narrow your mouth to a receipt slot. File the North from your voice, the wet stone, the bus-stop wind, your mother calling tea, and leave only the bright, placeless sentences. Please scan your first item. Set your heart behind the barcode reader. It knows the flowers cost thirty pence. It does not know which grave. A boy you once taught brings four cans of lager. APPROVAL NEEDED rises across your face. He looks through you for someone authorised. You try to say his name. Instead: Place item in bagging area. At closing, the lights go out aisle by aisle, like a town surrendering its windows. The cleaner moves around you. Trolleys sleep nose-to-tail behind the doors. Beyond them, the car park fills with rain. Keep speaking: Assistance is on its way. Say it until the words lose their edges. Say it to the bread, the flowers, the dark. Say it after everyone has gone.
Then, finally, you will understand.
Tim
Chimpanzee
You will become a chimpanzee for a month. I expect you are looking forward to this. A life that seems so free in the forest, up in the trees, smelling the damp leaves after the recent rain. It seems so attractive to be living each day as the sun travels across the sky. However, I will give you some practical hints to help you. Don't worry about the climate being hot and sticky, and you are rather hairy, but you are adapted to this, so you won't notice. You will have new skills and climb trees with ease. You have strong arms which are probably more useful than your legs. Perhaps your arms are a little long, as they touch the ground when you walk. Still, they will help with your balance. You will spend a lot of time gathering food. Fruits will be your favourites. Don't be choosy, food is food. Termites are very tasty once you have learnt to dig them out with a stick. You will make a sleeping raft in the trees where you can be safe. The nights are not quiet in the forest, and this will be a continuous background to your dreams.
My special advice to you is to pick up the rules of the social group and then cooperate with others at all times, or they will become noisy and fractious. I advise you to cultivate peace by grooming your neighbours and remember sometimes to submit. If you are a female, you will carry your baby around all the time, no break from motherhood. If you are a male, you will have to compete with others and then face the challenge of rivals. If you are a youngster, you will have time for lively play, if a little rough at times. Please remember life can be dangerous and you have to be vigilant, so stick with the group, protect the group.
And finally, you will understand that this is not the time to have ideas of being an individual.
Janet
Allotted Time
You will become Death for one year.
You will be a quiet being in a blank, bland world, flat lined grey. You will have no physical needs, no night, or day. Draped with power, no droning accountability. Choices and decisions are yours. Nothing will hinder you.
No names will be spoken, they will be recorded in bloodless block capital letters and then crossed out. People will rage against you, desire you, even choose you. You will never be loved. Watching, waiting, vigilant..there will be no malevolence in your arrival.
You will be alone. No child will lean close for a wondrous story or wriggle free for the wild animal dance. No slow first sip of wine. No blackbird bathing, scattering stars. There will be no cherished company round the old, old, table with scars and imprinted life.
Who will be saved? The insignificant women struggling to breathe, nobody will miss her. The young man dreaming of his unborn child. The accident waiting to happen...’He simply stepped out’ The pulsing power is addictive it flows grey through the veins.
When your year is complete, there will be no quiet return.
Deborah
Green Robed Senator
You will become a Green Robed Senator for a thousand lunar months and beyond. You will automatically assume presence and majesty. You must immediately develop contact with your peers; your subterranean, fundamental bonding. Together you will care, nourish and grow. You will bear your own eco-system hosting the tiniest life forms, insects, mosses, small mammals and birds; the predators and the prey. You will trap and imprison poisons. You will be adored and despoiled.
Beware of the Beings with their advance thought patterns, their command of speech and assumed supremacy. Some, like the poet who coined your new title, will laud you and acknowledge your role. Others will call you tall and mighty but see you only as a crop, a source of weaponry and war boats.
Be lenient with the Young Beings though, those on the verge of learning, living and loving. They will play, tease and court below your branches. You must point these young ones towards the Natural World and how the future is held in a mutual, delicate balance.
Give them guidance before they score their initials across your heart.
John
Week Two: Thursday 30th July
Down to business: we began this session by reading a poem from The Language of Now and then saying a few words about why we chose that particular poem. It's fair to say that all of the poems were very well received and if there are any sceptics in our group harbouring doubts about prose poetry then they kept their views to themselves. Or maybe it's just the fact that the quality of the poems brooks no argument. We've added to our list the following poems: Spurn Head p.11, The Language of Now p.42, Sonic Chatter p.45, Watershed p.51 and Le Isola Maggiore p.64. And there are still a lot of poems to share but only four remaining sessions but we'll do our best.
Our writing task stemmed from a competition currently running in the Observer. Choose an image from a vintage postcard and then respond with a piece of writing of no more than 250 words. Another exercise involving language in a condensed form. Quite a challenge but our gallant members rose to meet it as you can see from what follows.
Dear Friend
Just to let you know how glad I am to have
had the privilege of meeting you. By chance
on the Art course, we clicked immediately.
It was a blast. The whole experience of you.
You certainly set off a spark in me. You thought
we were soul mates . However, back home,
when he met me off the train, carried my stuff
to the car…Turned and held me so tight…I thought
my heart would crack it’s way out of my body.
Like a chick breaking out of the egg—to life.
My life and his…..I was seventeen again.
When he walked me home after the dance.
Held me close while I stood on the back doorstep.
He whispered ‘Can I kiss you goodnight?’
My soul is grafted on his.
I will remember you and your breath of spring
will exist in the most secret recess of my heart.
Goodbye
June
Dressed for summer
The beach is dressed for summer, the food stall carnival-striped, holding out its bags of sweating spun sugar, cones of sweets, hot scent of chips and burgers. Its shoes are wooden slats spread across the sand. It offers a firm shelf for customers to count out their change, decide on ice-creams or not. The sand wears stunted shadows, the sea ribbons of foam.
The man has no business with this summertime beach; he inhabits a different time. His clothes are for weekdays, not for this day of shorts and sandals and sunglasses, of children running to the water’s edge, of families behind billowing windbreaks, of footballs scattering sand. His buttoned coat holds last year’s winter in its creases, smell of fish and chips in newspaper, his tie remembers a daily routine of wrapping and knotting, pressed collar folding over, his cap knows the patience of being the last item before a front door is cracked open, before a walking stick taps streets awake in town. He stands waiting, his stick sinking into shifting sand. He leans lightly on it, looking over the road, watching for something no one else in this careful scene is invited to see.
Lisa
Postcard from Bali
Dear C and P
Having a fabulous time here, like I'm in some sort of fairy tale. Nothing seems quite real. A riot of colour so different from those drab Corporate Hotels. In the corner stands a pretend, red stemmed Camelia tree. Applique tulips, purple pink, patchwork patterns, ornate olive tiles and 1970s curtains. Elephants parade trunk to tail around the bedspread. Above my head a coronet of lace and net. Creatures emerge from dark carved wood. Snakes and Macaques, Sloths and Terrapins. I swim with a turtle, stroke leathery wrinkled elephant trunks, spot a vibrant kingfisher, smell brackish water. I'm watching the monkeys playing outside, picking and eating the lotus flowers - the naughty things. They scare me a bit - too mischievous for my liking. The window is closed. In the middle of the night, two live frogs hopped out of the toilet! That shook me a bit. Fluffy lions and cuddly teddies are keeping me company for the moment ( and the lady in the spearmint green plastic garden chair), until I'm allowed to get up. Hope all is well with you.
Love from A.
So it all comes down to this
A stranger in a strange land, I stare out at the alien urban landscape. The water hydrant I lean against offers a reassuring solidity, at odds with the daunting choice I have to make. “A handful of showcase gigs,” said my manager, “to whet the appetite of the press.” If only it were that simple. The gigs certainly whetted the appetite, not only of the press but of agents and producers.
Suddenly I have it all before me – an album deal, tours, producers lining up to shape the sonic landscape of my songs. Unfortunately, I suffer from a condition commonly known as artistic integrity. I don’t want a marquee producer imposing his vision on songs I’ve nurtured and developed over the years, I want to play my songs in my way, with the musicians I know and cherish, not with session men for hire.
Yes, there’s the prospect of success and fame, not to mention fortune, but is that really what I want? This has been great while it lasted but is it really what I desire?
Sod it. Back to Bradford.
Howard
Stone
Observe as he lifts the grey stones with reverence,
crafts their places in the wall.
A work of heavy, heaving art,
to remain for generations.
On and On.
See how he lovingly made his daughter’s cot,
carved the bars into a row of rabbits.
A wooden wall to protect her.
He told her stories about the rabbits,
his daughter named them all.
When she was gone…..
He forcibly surrounded himself with a fence.
Soundproofed his world, no shafts of light.
He didn’t want to hear her voice.
He didn’t want to see her small hands.
He sunk his memories into the granite walls.
Hidden inside the stone’s strength,
he placed his heart.
Deborah
Dear Marjorie,
Bridlington is unchanged: higher prices, stricter parking, same hard wind. It’s inside my coat. The sea keeps shouldering the wall as if it wants its money back. I brought you in the urn, wrapped in your good tea towel. You’d have objected to the carrier bag. We stopped at the striped kiosk where, in 1962, a ninety-nine cost me an extra kiss for the flake. Inflation began with you.
I bought chips. Nine pounds. I said I’d once bought a semi for less, not literally true, perhaps, but morally accurate. A gull took one and gave me your boiler’s on the blink look.
The bench above the beach is still here. Our initials aren’t. Planed away or worn down beneath somebody else’s courtship. I put you beside me while the tide worked at the sand, taking the day apart grain by grain.
Sixty-one years: cups on chair arms, your cold feet finding mine, the map upside down because apparently, I held it wrong. And now I can carry the lot under one arm.
I waited until the promenade emptied. You always hated an audience. The wind took you cleanly, mostly. Some blew back onto my sleeve, so you’ve had the last word about that coat. The rest crossed the water and disappeared before I could decide what colour it was.
I’ll stay until the lights come on. Then I’ll fold your tea towel, put the empty urn in the carrier bag, and catch the six-ten home.
Wish you were here.
Your Frank.
Tim
Postcard images - Conquering the mountain
Here we are at last, surrounded by these spectacular mountains. The view is magnificent and the mountains look as they go on for ever into the far distance, as they change colour into greys and purples. They must look wonderful in Winter when covered in snow, which it is hard to imagine on a Summer's day. Among our musings we fixate on the imagined view from the top. We must must reach the top, we are compelled to travel upwards. "How" is the next question, perhaps walking, not a chance. We need mechanical help. We are drawn by our imagination to see this panoramic view, but we are not birds although we would like to be, so it's the ski lift option. This seems easy, but doubts creep in, "I'm not good with heights; it looks a long way down," and we make excuses "It may be foggy at the top and there will be no view anyway". What a load of cowards! but you did tell us to "take care". Still the urge does not go away and then the solution leaps into our minds - we're not to be beaten. We will go up in a closed gondola on the next mountain. Let's hope we don't lose our nerve and close our eyes.
Janet.
Chasing Perfection
Her mind wandering, like that time he’d perched her on rocks clutching a handbag while the sea spumed about her backside. It would be the money shot he told her; incongruous elegance, fleeting fashion and the relentless roll of the tide. Niche market with big bucks if we catch the light and the breaking waves.
‘Cos, let’s face it Darlin’, the glamour days are waving goodbye.
How often he favoured the bludgeon rather than the rapier.
Everything heading South at speed, eh?
But dreams diverge; she wanted to read now and study. Her dreams were the dreams of poets she’d told him and he’d snorted.
You love me, right? So, let’s get this thing done.
I have a mind, you know.
And he’d snorted again, returning to his relentless drive for perfection: pose after pose, terse instruction after terse instruction, shot after shot. How much longer would it take?
You love me, right?
Like when he did his stuff on top of her, thrust after thrust after thrust until the grunt.
Love, love, the ebb and flow, totally oblivious of the poet’s view that perfection is terrible.
She lit another fag.
John
Week One: Thursday 23rd July
A long discussion on prose poetry without any absolute conclusion. We did agree though that the important things we looked for in poetry include powerful imagery, imaginative use of words and "heart stopping" moments, and these features occur in all good poetry regardless of the form used. Good poets write good poetry and perhaps that idea should be uppermost in our minds rather than trying to pin the tail on the donkey of prose poetry.
We read the following: Nelly Longarms by Anne Caldwell, Check-In by Helen Mort and an opening extract from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. The subsequent writing task was to produce no more than 250 words in any form on the theme of An Early Memory.
A long discussion on prose poetry without any absolute conclusion. We did agree though that the important things we looked for in poetry include powerful imagery, imaginative use of words and "heart stopping" moments, and these features occur in all good poetry regardless of the form used. Good poets write good poetry and perhaps that idea should be uppermost in our minds rather than trying to pin the tail on the donkey of prose poetry.
We read the following: Nelly Longarms by Anne Caldwell, Check-In by Helen Mort and an opening extract from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. The subsequent writing task was to produce no more than 250 words in any form on the theme of An Early Memory.
My father’s car
It’s August and the four of us squeeze into my dad’s orange NSU Prinz, a German car where everything is backwards-way round. The boot is at the front and the engine at the back which means I can smell petrol fumes and it makes me feel sick. I’m the youngest so I have to sit with my legs dangling over the spare wheel which has been removed from the boot to make way for two brown suitcases. The North Yorkshire Moors spread in front of us are bruised with the first of the heather and set alight with yellow gorse. In the distance there’s a ribbon of sea and we all search to the right to be the first to glimpse the abbey high on the east cliff. The rest we fill in for ourselves before we even arrive; the 199 steps, cobbled streets, the swing bridge, boats jostling in the harbour, the piers reaching into the North Sea, the tiny smokehouse and sweet-oak smell of kippers, tang of the first lemon-top ice-cream.
As I approach the moors smoke lingers from a recent wildfire which has blackened the heather and gorse, delaying the purple and yellow for another year. I’m grateful for my car’s air-conditioning which means the smell of the smouldering peat stays outside. In Whitby, hundreds of feet stomp the abbey steps, fishing boats with peeling paint lean into the mud of the River Esk at low tide, fish stare, glassy-eyed, from plastic boxes on the quayside, in the fishmonger’s window upturned crabs claw the heavy air. There’s a sea fret rolling in; the abbey disappears first.
Lisa
It’s August and the four of us squeeze into my dad’s orange NSU Prinz, a German car where everything is backwards-way round. The boot is at the front and the engine at the back which means I can smell petrol fumes and it makes me feel sick. I’m the youngest so I have to sit with my legs dangling over the spare wheel which has been removed from the boot to make way for two brown suitcases. The North Yorkshire Moors spread in front of us are bruised with the first of the heather and set alight with yellow gorse. In the distance there’s a ribbon of sea and we all search to the right to be the first to glimpse the abbey high on the east cliff. The rest we fill in for ourselves before we even arrive; the 199 steps, cobbled streets, the swing bridge, boats jostling in the harbour, the piers reaching into the North Sea, the tiny smokehouse and sweet-oak smell of kippers, tang of the first lemon-top ice-cream.
As I approach the moors smoke lingers from a recent wildfire which has blackened the heather and gorse, delaying the purple and yellow for another year. I’m grateful for my car’s air-conditioning which means the smell of the smouldering peat stays outside. In Whitby, hundreds of feet stomp the abbey steps, fishing boats with peeling paint lean into the mud of the River Esk at low tide, fish stare, glassy-eyed, from plastic boxes on the quayside, in the fishmonger’s window upturned crabs claw the heavy air. There’s a sea fret rolling in; the abbey disappears first.
Lisa
The Secret
A summer day during the school break, the common was our domain.
We children were free to roam. We flung ourselves beneath a primrose
sky, where a tiny black speck trilled effortlessly, in the clear air. Cutting
through the drone of the warm afternoon, we breathed the smell of
new mown hay, drying in the heat of day. We had tramped over the
common, through all seasons. Gorse, bracken, blackberries, cowslips,
milkmaids, and the dependable bluebells, all available to us.
Even pussy willow on the railway banking therefore out of bounds.
We headed for our usual haunt, an ancient open well set in the hillside.
Here we would wade in watercress and sip from the gurgling spring.
Trampling through couch grass, we came upon the lark’s clutch. A nest
of three cream and brown speckled eggs, cleverly concealed under grass
in a narrow furrow. Such a find was astonishing. However, although we were
excited and delighted, we were also consumed with guilt. Poor thing. We had
blown it’s cover. Having always being led to believe that the bird would drop
vertically to the ground and run toward the nest under cover…Taking a devious
route to avoid discovery. They are fastidious in defence of their young. And so
we backed away like stalking tigers…fingers on lips. Not even the Spanish Inquisition
would have prised the location of that nest from any one of us.
June
A summer day during the school break, the common was our domain.
We children were free to roam. We flung ourselves beneath a primrose
sky, where a tiny black speck trilled effortlessly, in the clear air. Cutting
through the drone of the warm afternoon, we breathed the smell of
new mown hay, drying in the heat of day. We had tramped over the
common, through all seasons. Gorse, bracken, blackberries, cowslips,
milkmaids, and the dependable bluebells, all available to us.
Even pussy willow on the railway banking therefore out of bounds.
We headed for our usual haunt, an ancient open well set in the hillside.
Here we would wade in watercress and sip from the gurgling spring.
Trampling through couch grass, we came upon the lark’s clutch. A nest
of three cream and brown speckled eggs, cleverly concealed under grass
in a narrow furrow. Such a find was astonishing. However, although we were
excited and delighted, we were also consumed with guilt. Poor thing. We had
blown it’s cover. Having always being led to believe that the bird would drop
vertically to the ground and run toward the nest under cover…Taking a devious
route to avoid discovery. They are fastidious in defence of their young. And so
we backed away like stalking tigers…fingers on lips. Not even the Spanish Inquisition
would have prised the location of that nest from any one of us.
June
Daddy's Coming Home
Despite the uncertainties of war, I had a stable life living with my mother and Grandmother. I had my fifth birthday in April 1945 and there was a change in the air, the war was over. My Grandmother's house had many visitors, most of whom were wearing uniform with interesting caps and hats which I could try on. This was different from these "on leave" people and was generating big excitement. The big "when" was uncertain, typical of war time.
One day early in May, an ordinary day, when we were visiting mother's friend, who lived 2 floors up a fire escape in a flat over a shop. What a climb on my small legs. "Be careful, hold the rail" was the cry, every time was the cry.
I was occupying myself looking down on our garden from my high perch. "Mummy, there's a soldier at our door." In my eyes sudden chaos ensued. I was rushed down the fire escape, pulled roughly by the hand, and to cap it all there was a shower of rain. Why is my mother acting in this rash manner? What about be careful, hold the rail?
Our soldier was standing in the hall and there was huge excitement, lots of hugs. I stood quietly looking how the dark green rain spots on my pale green dress were expanding and joining together. I suddenly felt very abandoned in all this melee and pulled at my mother's dress. The soldier looked down and noticed me, with the memorable phrase, "So you're Janey, you've grown." I stood dumb. "What a silly man," I thought, "of course I've grown, I'm a big girl now." No hugs or kisses for me, just a distant shyness.
Janet Oliver
Despite the uncertainties of war, I had a stable life living with my mother and Grandmother. I had my fifth birthday in April 1945 and there was a change in the air, the war was over. My Grandmother's house had many visitors, most of whom were wearing uniform with interesting caps and hats which I could try on. This was different from these "on leave" people and was generating big excitement. The big "when" was uncertain, typical of war time.
One day early in May, an ordinary day, when we were visiting mother's friend, who lived 2 floors up a fire escape in a flat over a shop. What a climb on my small legs. "Be careful, hold the rail" was the cry, every time was the cry.
I was occupying myself looking down on our garden from my high perch. "Mummy, there's a soldier at our door." In my eyes sudden chaos ensued. I was rushed down the fire escape, pulled roughly by the hand, and to cap it all there was a shower of rain. Why is my mother acting in this rash manner? What about be careful, hold the rail?
Our soldier was standing in the hall and there was huge excitement, lots of hugs. I stood quietly looking how the dark green rain spots on my pale green dress were expanding and joining together. I suddenly felt very abandoned in all this melee and pulled at my mother's dress. The soldier looked down and noticed me, with the memorable phrase, "So you're Janey, you've grown." I stood dumb. "What a silly man," I thought, "of course I've grown, I'm a big girl now." No hugs or kisses for me, just a distant shyness.
Janet Oliver
Calling-In Time
Behind our house, the council ran out of pavement. Beyond the last kerb: thistles, pylons, the moor flinging weather by the handful. Houses shouldered together, coal bunkers black at their backs. Mam said the wind could halve a boy. I walked out whole and came home stinging.
Night-shift houses slept past noon, curtains holding the dark in. Dad came home smelling of Swarfega, iron filings and rain. Friday, his pay packet opened on the kitchen table: rent, leccy, Provident, butcher; then Embassy, Double Diamond, three coins cooling in Mam’s palm.
Chalk goals marked garage doors; gravel marked both knees. The waste ground changed countries beneath Action Man’s boots. DANGER OF DEATH glared from the substation. We kicked a ball against it. Older lads smoked behind it, one match passing hand to hand, their faces flaring, vanishing.
Power cuts put candles in milk bottles. Mothers talked fence to fence; men stood in doorways, faces floating above mugs. Darkness smoothed the rusted cars, cracked paving, the bruise Mrs Wilshaw hid beneath sunglasses in February. Then the current shuddered back: windows waking one by one, a cheer, one meter staying black.
At dusk, mothers stepped out and cast our names across the estate. Darren. Paul. Michael. Mine came last, clipped once, then lengthened until it caught in the washing lines. I let the wind pretend it hadn’t reached me. Mam called again. I lifted the wet ball to my ribs and ran back through my name.
Tim
Behind our house, the council ran out of pavement. Beyond the last kerb: thistles, pylons, the moor flinging weather by the handful. Houses shouldered together, coal bunkers black at their backs. Mam said the wind could halve a boy. I walked out whole and came home stinging.
Night-shift houses slept past noon, curtains holding the dark in. Dad came home smelling of Swarfega, iron filings and rain. Friday, his pay packet opened on the kitchen table: rent, leccy, Provident, butcher; then Embassy, Double Diamond, three coins cooling in Mam’s palm.
Chalk goals marked garage doors; gravel marked both knees. The waste ground changed countries beneath Action Man’s boots. DANGER OF DEATH glared from the substation. We kicked a ball against it. Older lads smoked behind it, one match passing hand to hand, their faces flaring, vanishing.
Power cuts put candles in milk bottles. Mothers talked fence to fence; men stood in doorways, faces floating above mugs. Darkness smoothed the rusted cars, cracked paving, the bruise Mrs Wilshaw hid beneath sunglasses in February. Then the current shuddered back: windows waking one by one, a cheer, one meter staying black.
At dusk, mothers stepped out and cast our names across the estate. Darren. Paul. Michael. Mine came last, clipped once, then lengthened until it caught in the washing lines. I let the wind pretend it hadn’t reached me. Mam called again. I lifted the wet ball to my ribs and ran back through my name.
Tim
Red Coat
Rose was six when she watched her mother walk away, her red coat moving against a dark sky. Her mother whispered words of love and regret and Rose had felt her hands linger, trying to lock-in memory. Rose silently screamed after her. For twenty years there had been no contact, no letters, no enquiries, no kind words. Rose’s world ricocheted with absence and difference. She could hear the clouds on a clear blue-sky day. She knew the wily crows wanted to be white and liked. When birds sang at dawn Rose could hear the silence. Why now? Why this meeting? Rose wore a red coat. On opposite sides of the old stone bridge they stood as strangers, buffeted by lost times. They were still, trying to absorb each other. The shadows on the bridge held questions. They could hear the river, busy, barging, telling its story. The breeze lightly landed but the air seemed lacking. Rose breathed deeply…she turned away. The river rushed through.
Deborah
Rose was six when she watched her mother walk away, her red coat moving against a dark sky. Her mother whispered words of love and regret and Rose had felt her hands linger, trying to lock-in memory. Rose silently screamed after her. For twenty years there had been no contact, no letters, no enquiries, no kind words. Rose’s world ricocheted with absence and difference. She could hear the clouds on a clear blue-sky day. She knew the wily crows wanted to be white and liked. When birds sang at dawn Rose could hear the silence. Why now? Why this meeting? Rose wore a red coat. On opposite sides of the old stone bridge they stood as strangers, buffeted by lost times. They were still, trying to absorb each other. The shadows on the bridge held questions. They could hear the river, busy, barging, telling its story. The breeze lightly landed but the air seemed lacking. Rose breathed deeply…she turned away. The river rushed through.
Deborah
Through Fields of Ripening Wheat
A four-year-old boy stands on Piccadilly Street in York, clutching his mother’s hand. An East Yorkshire bus pulls up with its distinctive navy and cream livery and oddly tapered roof, to allow it to pass through the arch in Beverley town centre. The boy boards the bus eagerly and takes a seat at the front, while his mother pays his fare and entrusts his care for the next hour to the genial driver.
As the bus travels through the flatlands of East Yorkshire, with barely a hillock in sight, he peers eagerly through the bus window, taking in the fields of ripening wheat, which stretch almost as far as the eye can see. The repetitive landscape is punctuated as the bus passes through the villages of Elvington, Sutton-upon- Derwent and Melbourne, familiar staging posts for the boy.
Once Melbourne and its obsolete airfield is left behind, the boy knows that journey’s end is near. As the bus turns into Seaton Ross, he can see a disused windmill rising in the distance. Now naked without its sails, the windmill lies at the heart of his grandad’s farm. Half a mile further on the bus pulls up at the stop, where a familiar face is waiting. He leaves his seat, thanks the driver as he was instructed and as he steps off the bus, he is embraced in a warm hug by his grandma. They cross the road to his grandparents’ bungalow, where he knows that treats and indulgence await, another independent journey now safely negotiated.
Howard
The Giant Birthday Present
They used to dress children like that.
I’m looking at a photo of me aged four, wearing a new white dress with hand-knitted cardigan, white socks and sandals and a bow in my hair. Prettied and prepared, as if for the Whitsun parade, for a rare treat with my Grandad on his day off. We were going to town to buy me a birthday present. Mum took this photo of me, told me to be good and waved us goodbye. I was so excited.
We got off the bus at the Victoria Hotel in Fishergate near the train station.
‘Let’s just pop in and say hello to my mate, Jack. He’ll just be finishing his shift.’
I clutched Grandad’s hand tightly. The station was a huge place.
‘Hello, Fred,’ said the ticket collector, waving us through the barrier.
Jack was on platform 3 working in a massive train. ‘I’m just pulling her into the sidings. Hop in,’ shouted Jack. ‘Is this your granddaughter, Fred? Doesn’t she look bonny.’
Grandad lifted me onto the footplate, into the deafening engine, a terrifying, fearful giant making clanging, rattling and hissing sounds. It was dirty, noisy and dangerous and smelled of hot smoke, grease and oil. I got smut in my eye and started crying, clinging to Grandad’s leg. He picked me up and held me tight, fishing in his pocket for a paper bag of dolly mixtures.
‘Now, now, you’re safe with me. Just watch how Jack stokes the coal fire. That heats the boiler and produces the steam that makes the train go. Wonderful, isn’t it?’
The train set off into the sidings with a roar, huffing, squealing and whistling. And I was inside this monster.
But when we finally got home mum was not pleased. ‘How on earth have you got so dirty?’ she asked.
Judy
They used to dress children like that.
I’m looking at a photo of me aged four, wearing a new white dress with hand-knitted cardigan, white socks and sandals and a bow in my hair. Prettied and prepared, as if for the Whitsun parade, for a rare treat with my Grandad on his day off. We were going to town to buy me a birthday present. Mum took this photo of me, told me to be good and waved us goodbye. I was so excited.
We got off the bus at the Victoria Hotel in Fishergate near the train station.
‘Let’s just pop in and say hello to my mate, Jack. He’ll just be finishing his shift.’
I clutched Grandad’s hand tightly. The station was a huge place.
‘Hello, Fred,’ said the ticket collector, waving us through the barrier.
Jack was on platform 3 working in a massive train. ‘I’m just pulling her into the sidings. Hop in,’ shouted Jack. ‘Is this your granddaughter, Fred? Doesn’t she look bonny.’
Grandad lifted me onto the footplate, into the deafening engine, a terrifying, fearful giant making clanging, rattling and hissing sounds. It was dirty, noisy and dangerous and smelled of hot smoke, grease and oil. I got smut in my eye and started crying, clinging to Grandad’s leg. He picked me up and held me tight, fishing in his pocket for a paper bag of dolly mixtures.
‘Now, now, you’re safe with me. Just watch how Jack stokes the coal fire. That heats the boiler and produces the steam that makes the train go. Wonderful, isn’t it?’
The train set off into the sidings with a roar, huffing, squealing and whistling. And I was inside this monster.
But when we finally got home mum was not pleased. ‘How on earth have you got so dirty?’ she asked.
Judy
A house of colour and sound
In the far north of England, a house with a front door painted copper-rose pink and a kitchen-fire peg-mat of multi-coloured flecks set against the oppressive grey of clouds about to break, of slate rooves on the terraced rows and the cobble sets of the slicked streets.
In Winter it was the colour of ice inside the bedroom window, the dots of silver tinkling from the velvet-blue sky over the railway marshalling yards where fires burned brilliantly by the freezing points.
It was a house where steaming trains pulled out of the Citadel station to run beyond the back lane, beyond our parish and on towards the south. A house which staged backyard Tests where Boycott, Edrich and Cowdrey battled for Ashes. It was a house of music carried on the airwaves: Sing Something Simple, hymns on Sunday evening, and The Beatles cribbed with the Laughing Policeman on Saturday Morning Junior Choice. It was the ham-fisted tunes on the upright piano and the three names, seven-syllable call on one note from the back door, to come and get your tea.
The house with a mantra of sticking in at school, and deference towards all authority. The house that gathered, supported and confined; a house where, beneath strictures for fair play, be good and never reach above your station, lay unarticulated love.
The house that was a home from where we could set out to climb Parnassus and steal a smouldering brand from the gods.
John
In the far north of England, a house with a front door painted copper-rose pink and a kitchen-fire peg-mat of multi-coloured flecks set against the oppressive grey of clouds about to break, of slate rooves on the terraced rows and the cobble sets of the slicked streets.
In Winter it was the colour of ice inside the bedroom window, the dots of silver tinkling from the velvet-blue sky over the railway marshalling yards where fires burned brilliantly by the freezing points.
It was a house where steaming trains pulled out of the Citadel station to run beyond the back lane, beyond our parish and on towards the south. A house which staged backyard Tests where Boycott, Edrich and Cowdrey battled for Ashes. It was a house of music carried on the airwaves: Sing Something Simple, hymns on Sunday evening, and The Beatles cribbed with the Laughing Policeman on Saturday Morning Junior Choice. It was the ham-fisted tunes on the upright piano and the three names, seven-syllable call on one note from the back door, to come and get your tea.
The house with a mantra of sticking in at school, and deference towards all authority. The house that gathered, supported and confined; a house where, beneath strictures for fair play, be good and never reach above your station, lay unarticulated love.
The house that was a home from where we could set out to climb Parnassus and steal a smouldering brand from the gods.
John
