Riot

Fire is plasma scorching the underside


Of TV screens, safety glass closed between


Voyeurs, working themselves to a climax


Of indignation and no little fear,


And no little guilt, and the performers


Who could be poets such is their total


Self absorption, poets etching malice


On shop windows with subtleties of bricks,


Imprinting their audacious images


Of petrol bombs on dull, regulation


Riot shields. Ultimately, though, looting


Is itself just masturbation, driven


By cravings satisfied in the moment,


Ejaculations of pent up anger,


Of bravado, spilling over pavements,


Over concrete, seed broadcast on stony ground.


Then the lethargy, the recognition


That frustration has only been appeased.


Meanwhile, the moral free market speculates,


There’s profit to be had from destruction.


Ministers compete in denouncing sin,


Intending to bolster their plunging stock,


To deflect attention from kith and kin


Who are culpable of looting pensions,


Imputable for taking all credit


For themselves, complicit in the wanton


Destruction of impoverished nations.


On the odd night cities mostly smouldered,


Financiers mugged whole economies,


Running riot in the City, police


Powerless to act while society


Chose only stand back and watch, hoping


Not to be burned as the great grandchildren


Of the Iron Lady took what they wanted


For themselves alone and in doing so


Drew her to her natural conclusion.

 

                                                       Dave Alton

From the Tyneside Poets' Archive

Summer Rain





I like the rain in summer


When the grass is resurrected


The trees shimmer with delight


The pavements smile…






And people run for the heaven of it –


Lust unleashed, damp igniting passions void below


The smell of summer is concentrated


In lethal doses of joy.






The cricketers scurry,


Lovers hide one another


Flowers laden with life suck up summer’s juices


Life rushes on.






Black earth rich as treacle


Farmers smile –


The cows are not amused.


But I sing and sing and sing.






Tim Heavisides






The Violent Suburb






In this road, “within easy reach of the city”,


Where the birds are screwed to the sky


And the air stings like an overripe peach,


The long, slow memory of violence


Coats the doors with a hard gloss.






Why should we wish people to live otherwise?


We all need out womb sooner or later,


Somewhere to gather the fragments of our lives,


When outside only drags us apart.






Yet the warm air nudges, whispers:


“See the houses, regular and modern,


Arranged like cornflakes packets


Along the tidy street.”






“See this man, bent with years of toil;


No white-collar worker he;


Unions have fought for his rights,


He has worked hard and honestly.


How can we grudge him his earthly reward?”






But the heat stings like an Indian dungfly,


And its ticking is loud in my ears:






“See the nations, how they rise,


The mythology of might growing in each,


The surgeons skilled in healing the war-wounded,


Each country surrounded by a deadly transparent wall.


Its diplomats primed


To give away nothing,


To boost their own interests…


See the nations, regular and neat,


Everybody’s suburbs,


Each soul protected like a cornflake.”






And what danger remains in the wild, wild wood,


Now that we’ve chopped in all down, all down,


Now that we’ve chopped it all down?






John Earl

More from the archives of Poetry North East

STAR OVER LINDISFARNE


Cold star,
Winking down the rolling vertigo of sky,
Here I am, alone,
With nothing between us but the pulsating void of night.


Beneath the naked sky,
I have come to you.
Washed by waves of night,
Encircled by the heaving purple sea,
Bathed in spangled night-brightness across the jagged dunes
I have come,
And you don't care.


My eyes burn in the night wind;
My heart burns -
And you, cold star, inanimate,
Need no love.
Yet you and I are intimate.


The great black castle lurches behind me,
Heaving, eerie, into the sky,
As if to weigh me to the Earth.
But you, star,
You and I are pulled together.
Forever apart, we hurtle through the Universe.
You and I are intimate.




ROGER HARVEY






LINDISFARNE


What did you look at Cuthbert
On your island?
Did you marvel at the colours
in the rock pool?
Pink sea anemonies
And white coral weed
Translucent.
Or were your eyes
On the clear horizons?
This enormous vista of space
Accentuated by rocks - far distant,
The Whin Sill cropping up
At Bamburgh
And out to sea.
Sentinels,
The Farnes formed one behind the other,
Frozen whales, flat triangles of obdurate faith
Against the sea.
And were you aware of
The emotions of the Universe
As it pulled the bay free of water
Or flooded the mudflats,
The fluctuations of powers
Beyond your control?
And did you walk
The tenuous path to the mainland
When it was water free
And contact your fellows
With love?
And were you burnt by them?
What sent you back to your cell
Dwelling inwardly,
Voluntary denial
Of all sensory stimulation
To see beyond the scene?




WENDY ZOULA






BONFIRES


Something is burning inside me;
you could call it my heart
but it's much more precise than that, it's a bonfire;
crackling sticks of shy words.


Crossing the country last week,
I saw them,
jumbled up heaps of poems
assembling,
rioting bundles of wood,
alone in October-dry fields.


Tonight, sitting here,
with only you in my eyes,
dazed by the intense glare, I devise
a scheme to link bonfires across the land,
to burn down the walls between our hands,


if only to set your face alight,
if only to see one Guy Fawkes Day
your dreamy children smile.




KEITH ARMSTRONG






THE SEA IS WASHING SALT UPON YOUR SKIN


Wanting you, coast to coast, I have desired
To capture carefully the secret of mould
From those who thought they could teach me how to love
With flesh-hooks of teeth, and to store one's gold
Like rarely seen pearls of the dawn and frost.


Gone from the maps of your skin I cannot go far
From what I have already lost;
Lately when we have parted I wanted to scar
Your memory with my decay, rust,
And ruin, to tell you to your face
I wait beside death for your return.


Must
you let them breed upon your style and grace
Deceiving your heart with their flesh and lies,
And caring nothing for what is within -
Evenings bring the gentle blue from your eyes,
The sea is washing salt upon your skin.




MELANIE J. TAYLOR