Returning to the Sea

Lounge seems such an inappropriate word

Even though he sits there quietly,


Bolstered by cushions,


Idle hands folded casually in his lap,


Eyelids drooping.


The world outside is sliced into thin strips


By a Venetian blind


That’s probably dusty because they always are


And the dust will be him,


Slowly flaking away his four score and five.


There’s barely a sliver of him remaining.






Am I looking into a scrying mirror


Foreshadowing my own future?


I know I should be recording his history


Before he’s engulfed by it,


Making a record to give voice


To those albums of snaps I’ll be left with,


Illusions in monochrome and paling colour,


As if time


Could be developed at an optimum moment


And fixed.


Over Pendle, that whale of a hill,


An ocean of dark cloud swims before the wind,


Our present sunshine,


Colloped into long thin ingots of light pyrites,


Is too glittery to last.






Rain, when it arrives, will be unwelcome,


He’s already drowning


From internal springs which wont be staunched,


Bronchials barely coping with the flash-flood,


Bloated legs mocking emaciation,


And weeping pores.


Years must weigh heavily


To result in such weariness as this,


To press his world inwards,


Downwards,


To hobble him


So he shuffles between easy chair and dining chair


And bed.


Such, these days, is the geography of his life.






Just a room away a silent piano,


Old scores laid to rest,


Bass drone of the dehumidifier


Sucking the last of his fluid playing from the air.


All those composers he tended to so passionately


Are long dead


Even to him now.


Finally, all music must end in silence,


Whether the last note is emphatic


Or pianissimo,


The performance draws to a close.


He doesn’t even listen anymore,


A library of CDs


Mute in their sleeves as blanks.






Rain arrives


Pebble dashing the picture window


Bars of the blind giving an impression of security.


With stoic deliberation


He lifts his lids,


Turns to stare out,


Draws an arid breath across sandpaper


And, in a near whisper strained through a pillow, says,


“Looks bleak, doesn’t it.”


Words are feathers catching in his throat


Inducing a spasm of coughing


Which might just shake loose every bone in his body


From its flimsy fixings.


There is no freedom of speech anymore,


Not under this regime.






Newspaper still folded,


Too weighty with world events for him to lift;


It will be slipped neatly into the magazine rack


A daily countdown


No one seems able to cancel,


Not while he still occupies, however slightly,


The absence forming in his chair.


I pick up the paper and read it,


I can at least do this for him


Or myself,


Suspending my disbelief.


Also, I can look out at the slatted weather


Seeing he’s slipped into a doze again,


And, I admit,


Glance to check his thin chest still has a rhythm to it.


Cloud, shattering against unyielding glass, is running,


Via gutters and channels,


Back towards the undifferentiated sea.


There is a shallow beat to his chest


And his eyes prise themselves open


To look once again


Out into the drenching gloom.


“Yes dad,” I say nonchalantly, “It does look bleak.”

                                                                          




 Dave Alton

Grainger Market 1970

Cold red meat laid to rest
on white marble slabs.

Stinking cheeses
and farm fresh eggs.

Flowers for all occasions:
Red roses, white lillies.

Naval oranges
and golden delicious.

Mouth-watering music
from the records stand.


Catherine Graham

A PORTRAIT OF THE GRAINGER MARKET BY THE TYNESIDE POETS - FROM 1973

this is life
the gloss and the flesh

weigh-house of passion and flame

you can get lost in this market’s amazement

but you can never lose yourself

sometimes

a sleep-walk in these grazing crowds

can feel like a stroll through your brain

Keith Armstrong

A city

within a city

light cage

bazaar and blind

these swollen alleys

flow with a teeming life’s blood

Geordie !

Swim for your life !

Keith Armstrong

ODE TO THE GRAINGER MARKET

You, Grainger Market, aged Patriarch,

Quaint backdrop of our childhhod’s crazy dawn.

Edwardian giantess; stiff, grounded Angel.

From Nun Street, still, your steel-webbed dentures gleam.

Uplifted shop-flanked avenue, curved arches,

Our fathers and grandfathers here were green.

The cool, invidious housewife with crooked elbows

Takes pleasure home in bags. Years melt between.

Butchers, optician, chemist, haberdashers;

The cleaver’s clang, the swish of brush or broom;

The General Weigh-house – favourite of grandmothers,

The flower’s faint breath, the laurel’s undying gloom.

The scent of amorous bouquets, vague Death’s pungent smell,

Tropical fruits, leather, split carcasses;

The musty smell of bodies and old books

Mingling with odours rank and chemical.

The sound of clanging voices, shuffling feet,

Clamour and movement, taut, mechanical;

The thrust and press of bodies, sweat and heat;

Excitement, lifting, falling, like a church bell.

The present and the past; authentic life

Moving out of estrangement and blank streets

Into white wishes and Epiphany

A near event, cancelling death and pain.

Insouciant childhood hours, swift adolescent years

Are spectral here, rustling fusty leaves

In secondhand book-shops, fingering with more

I light this candled Altar’s eulogy to You

Heart of the dreaming city; mine and yours.

Knowing that in you halts the great encounter

That though all else may change: you will be ours.

You, Grainger Market, aged Patriarch

Across the desert of the years are gazing

Like Abram from his tent, while Angels come,

And in the cool evening – you remember.

What bones in city graveyards are forgetting,

What stiff-necked statues can no longer praise,

Life’s natural fulfilment, love’s tender joyous giving

You, place of meeting, from oblivious raise.

Faint Memory’s penumbra echoing

Through wrought-iron gates of shuttered evening:

Your Great Heart almost motionless, unheard, unseen

Is waiting yet the days axed by no planner’s

Bald and concrete dream.

Alan C. Brown

ODE TO THE GRAINGER MARKET

In the light of winter they shovelled your snow,

And banged their hands in the lantern’s glow,

Now, as then, from village and town

To the city they tumble in suit and gown.

And the mice ran merry in booth and rafter,

Top-hatted the street-cabs’ careless laughter,

From ox and fen and chicken pen

They took their tally and bartered like men.

Now the muddy ways are back again

And the town reshapes round the planner’s pen;

New things for old, black stones buy gold,

One by one sooty buildings come into the fold.

Who’ll by my town ? Who’ll buy my town ?

A sample of water straight from the Tyne,

“Chateau de Jesmond Dene” potent as wine,

A thirty three bus complete with its crew

Has rarity value – the graffiti’s brand new !

Who’ll buy my town ? who’ll buy my town ?

Ring out the old and ring in the new –

Here’s grass from the Moor freshly chewed by a cow

And the breath in the bottle’s a love word I knew.

Buy these footsteps, these gestures, these columns of print,

Buy these births, deaths and marriages, make your eyes squint.

Here’s a two, here’s a two, your bingo card’s up

And this baby’s for you.

Thro away town ? Throw away men ?

Who’ll put my market together again ?

Here’s perfume from Africa made by a witch,

Some strikers for matches, the matches, the foreman’s got a stitch.

Three golden whippets mounted on coal,

A genuine facsimile of Robledo’s goal.

Come and buy, come and buy, put hairs on your chest,

Here’s a fossil pork-pie from the old Crow’s Nest,

An unwashed glass from the old Dun Cow for your throttle

And the whole of Sandyford Road in a bottle !

Come and buy, come and buy,

Throw away streets ! Throw away men !

Who’ll put Newcastle together again ?

Change your fancies, your fashions,

Your records, your love

Change your stones, change your rings, this is your glove;

It fits you now as it fitted you then,

Throw away town ? Throw away men ?

Who’ll put my market together again ?

Two pence off this, three pence of that,

With every new car you get a free cat,

Thousands of stamps and a free flying bat.

Throw a way garbage, throwaway streets,

Five dozen varieties, folding seats.

Come and buy, come and buy, liquorice allsorts, fine potted meats

Throwaway town ? Throwaway men ?

Who’ll put my market together again ?

Jim Greigh

POEM FOR MAUD

bred in a market arch

a struggle

in a city’s armpit

that flower

in your time-rough hand’s

a beautiful girl in a slum alley

all that kindness in your face

and you’re right

the time are not what they were

this England’s not what it was

flowers shrink in the crumbling vase

dusk creeps in on a cart

and Maud the sun is choking

Maud this island’s sinking

and all that sleeping sea is

the silent majority

waving

Keith Armstrong

FLOWERS

Crucifixes of woven ferns,

haloes of blossoms, the floral

appurtenances of death

heaped in gaudy profusion

along tiers of artificial

grass; giraffe-necked vases

spitting sprays of purple

rushes into scent-crammed air.

Beneath a high roof of cloud-

mottled glass an alley of

commercial swamps glares sultry

luxuriance against grey crowds.

For blazing lovers, bunched and

be-ribboned roses glossy

with tears; brittle sheaves of

bluebells for strewing at

the feet of plaster saints;

odoriferous conglomerations

of colours guaranteed to

bring soporific bliss

to hushed terminal wards;

tribes of hot-house orchids

mauled by leprous dusts,

vivid petals tumbling

onto the backs of snoozing cats.

From musty shadows discreet

rows of memorial urns shine

their golden R.I.P.’s

upon passing immortals.

Michael Wilkin

MEAT

Lanes of slit carcasses,

black blood swallowed by sawdust;

vagabond dogs loaf around

mounds of discarded entrails.

Hares and rabbits strung-up

in precise military rows,

neat bullet-holes glimmering

like medals through scorched fur,

the idiot grins of death

suspended from gleaming hooks.

Bundles of sparkling plumage,

trussed pheasants hovering

above trays of glittering guts.

Venison for asking,

purple tongues loll

from crushed mouths,

city children gaze

into eyes brimful

with the quietude

of ghostly forests.

Apprentices swab scarred

chopping-blocks, weals

of caked reds

streak their aprons;

whistling, they muscle

barrow-loads of decapitated

pigs through ambling crowds.

A Venus of the cleaver

stuns my heart, a loud rose

pinned above her jutting

breasts, she hacks

a lamb in half

with consummate ease,

an ersatz boater

tilted a la Chevalier

across her blond brow.

A goddess of silversides

Sauntering gazelle-like

Within a crimson cage,

Wrapping cutlets with lissom

Grace, scornful of my stammering

Presence, her eyes stampede

Across my slovenly smile

As she pole-axes me to a

Slaughter-house of oblivion.

Michael Wilkin

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

SONG FOR NORTHUMBERLAND

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Hover the kestrel,

sing out the lark,

we will be free in our time.

This air is our breath,

this sea is our thirst

and our dreams are sailing home.

Wandering through castles,

their walls are our lungs.

Searching for freedom

in country homes.

Forbears and old cares

blown in the wind;

pull of loved harbours

draws our boats in.

Surge of the salmon

and urge of the sea

leaps in our local blood.

Peal of the bluebells

and ring of bold tunes

reel in all those grey years.

Slopes of the Cheviots,

caress of the waves.

Shipwrecks and driftwood

float in our heads.

Pele-stones and carved bones

hide in these hills,

roots of new stories

in ancient tales.

Dew on our lips

and beer on the breath,

drinking the countryside in.

Bread of the landscape

and wine of this earth,

flows on these river beds.

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Hover the kestrel,

sing out the lark,

we will be free in our time.

This air is our breath,

this sea is our thirst

and our dreams are sailing home.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Poems from the archives of Poetry North East

Détente




Nothing, in the certainty of knowing goes


evermore regretfully, but this shadow,


an intimacy, which


lengthening through the cool dust of an evening,


dies along these, our familiar streets,


darkly, and in its own quietness.




                                             George Charlton






The North East




Her face is like the murky, muggy Tyne


Belching her detritus into the sea


Of emptiness


Which no face-lift can efface and leave fine.




Your head is like Consett’s skyline


Which tears at the sky like broken marble


Trying to pull it down to shield its children of


Iron and steel born in the black furnace.




Your eye are like the embers of a dull fire


Fighting to keep alive


But losing and dying


Bearing the craters in tranquillity.




Your brain is still alive


The railway lines sprawling across


Your body which feels the pain.




Your mind counts each loss


Like the machine that replaced it,


But could not the monotonous


Beating of the waves – the final humility.




I see nobody, only a mind


Which could not succumb today.


That life is still living in the


Beauty of its birth of yesterday.




                                             Tim Heavisides