NORTHERN VOICES AWARDS 2012

PRESS RELEASE 23/3/2012

The winner of the 2012 Northern Voices Joseph Skipsey Award is the late Gordon MacPherson (1928-1999). The Award was accepted by his daughter Heather Wood of Easington at the Joseph Skipsey 180th anniversary event at the Mining Institute in Newcastle on 17th March.

Northern Voices Community Projects coordinator Keith Armstrong also picked up a lifetime achievement award.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT: 0191 2529531

FIGHT TO THE FINISH

GORDON MACPHERSON

(1928-1999)

The life, poems and stories of an East Durham Miner

This is a moving and passionate account of one man’s extraordinary battle against adversity to raise a family in an East Durham pit village.

Gordon MacPherson's poetry and writing sums up the arduous working conditions that miners struggle under and his own personal battle with emphysema in later life.

Gordon was an ordinary miner who did great things. This book glows with love and human decency against all the odds.

It shows us the power of community and serves as an example for the future of this area of North East England and beyond. 

A MESSAGE FROM GRAHAME MORRIS, M.P. FOR EASINGTON

It was an honour to know Gordon MacPherson. He is an inspiration; a man committed to his community, family and with a deep love of the area where he was brought up. I am proud to have known Gordon and he was a friend and an inspiration.

This very personal, moving and evocative account of one man’s extraordinary battle against adversity to raise a family in an East Durham pit village in many ways typifies past working class struggles.

Order from: Northern Voices Community Projects, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Lodge, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD tel. 0191 2529531 or: Heather Wood, 8 Comet Drive, Easington, County Durham SR8 3EP tel. 0191 5270371.

ISBN  978-1-871536-15-4                             PRICE £5 (add £2.50 postage)

Two poems by New Zealand poet Tim Jones

Tim Jones


Tim Jones is a poet and author of both science fiction and literary fiction who was awarded the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. Tim was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire and his family emigrated to New Zealand when he was 2 years old. Tim now lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

Tim's third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained, was published in late 2011For more, see:

Tim's Amazon UK author page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tim-Jones/e/B004MGX7Z8/

Tim's blog: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/


North



On Ilkley Moor


I parked me red


Ford Laser hatchback


and gazed to the north.


Rain and smoke stood over Wharfedale.




It was all in its appointed place:


stone houses and stone smiles in Ilkley


the wind on the bleak


insalubrious bracken.




I was waiting for memory


to make the scene complete:


some flat-vowelled voice out of childhood


snatches of Northern song.




For memory read TV:


Tha've broken tha poor Mother's heart.


It were only a bit of fun.


Bowl slower and hit bloody stumps.




Tha'll never amount to much, lad. In cloth cap and gaiters,


car forgotten, I pedal down the hill. Hurry oop


or tha'll be late for mill. Folk say


I've been seeing the young widow Cleghorn.


Well, now, fancy that.




In my invented character


I trail my falsified heritage


down the long, consoling streets.





Harbours




He settled


where the sea made a distant mirror



glimpsed from the sloping decks


of fast-subsiding houses.




Dockside cranes, the mournful tones


of cruise ships and coastal traders -




these were his background music,


his theme and variations.




From cliff-tops, from office blocks,


he would monitor departures,




courses set for distant harbours


rich with spice and contraband.




Retired, he had his garden,


books, the heavy ticking




of the farewell clock. He searched


tide tables, shipping movements,




looking for a sailing time,


a vessel heading home.

Source

Free standing

At this

Point

This singularity

Entire mass

Of universe

Pivoting around

It

Little wonder

Creation

Feels so heavy

So

Much pressing down

Light

Seems so

Less dense

So

More anonymous

Than darkness

Shadows

Carrying greater weight

As stars

Emerge

And are brilliant

And dwindle

And dim

And die

And

While dark

Remains constant between

Unending

Unerring

Unfathomable

Lurking around

Edges of light

Biding its time

Swallowing time

Taking time

To

Time out

Dark eons

Prove longer

Than

Light years

Shades

Being insurgent

Vanguard

Positively charged

With breaching

Negative defences

Slyly opening

Portals

Rushed by full-force

Of darkness

Rampant

Overwhelming

Light defences

Then

When last eye closes

Vision

Will be vanquished

Banished

From blind realms

In perpetuity

So

This moment

This

Pinprick of brilliance

This singular

Happenstance

Must be seen

Be treasured

As a gem

Without price

As a pearl

Is dull

As the moon

Beyond illumination

                                              Dave Alton

Press Release

THE HARTLEY PIT CALAMITY OF 1862

As part of the 2012 150th anniversary of the Hartley Pit Calamity of 1862, local community arts group Northern Voices Community Projects (NVCP) is, with the support of North Tyneside Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund, preparing a touring display and study pack about the Calamity and are asking interested volunteers to get involved.

NVCP have already published, with North Tyneside Council, a commemorative historical book 'Still the Sea Rolls On' and editors Dr Keith Armstrong and Peter Dixon are leading a series of informative visits and study workshops for local volunteers to help research original documentation about the Calamity. The results will be a touring display and a set of study packs to be distributed to North Tyneside libraries, schools, colleges, museums and other organisations who have an interest in the subject.

Involvement is free and there will be visits to Newcastle's Mining Institute, New Hartley Memorial Garden and Earsdon churchyard, Woodhorn Museum, Beamish Museum and Newcastle Library, culminating at Segedunum, Wallsend.

Volunteers will get practical experience of local sites and archives and an insight into the research skills involved in local history research. You need no qualifications or skills to join, only an interest in local community history.

The first visit is at 10.15am on Monday 19th March at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Hall, Westgate Road, Newcastle, near the Central Station, and will include a tour of the Institute followed by a bus trip to New Hartley to visit the Memorial Garden and other local sites, including Earsdon churchyard, as well as an illustrated talk by Dr Keith Armstrong and Peter Dixon based on their new book, together with a free buffet lunch.

The other four visits will follow during the day over the next two months.

There are a limited number of places. If you are interested, please contact:

Northern Voices Community Projects Tel: 0191 2529531 or e-mail: k.armstrong643@btinternet

or Chris Bishop, Heritage and Museums Manager, North Tyneside Council Tel 0191 6437413 or e-mail: chris.bishop@northtyneside.gov.uk

Notes to Editors.

North Tyneside Council was successful in securing funding up to £18,600 from the HLF Your Heritage lottery fund to support projects to mark the 150^th Anniversary of the Hartley Pit Disaster. This project is part of a programme of activities supported by those funds.

Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage.  HLF has supported more than 30,000 projects allocating £4.7billion across the UK. Website: www.hlf.org.uk 

THE SUN ON DANBY GARDENS

The sun on Danby Gardens

smells of roast beef,

tastes of my youth.

The flying cinders of a steam train

spark in my dreams.

Across the old field,

a miner breaks his back

and lovers roll in the ditches,

off beaten tracks.

Off Bigges Main,

my grandad taps his stick,

reaches for the braille of long-dead strikes.

The nights

fair draw in

and I recall Joyce Esthella Antoinette Giles

and her legs that reached for miles,

tripping over the stiles 

in red high-heels.

It was her and blonde Annie Walker

who took me in the stacks

and taught me how to read

the signs

that led inside their thighs.

Those Ravenswood girls

would dance into your life

and dance though all the snow drops

of those freezing winters,

in the playground of young scars.

And I remember freckled Pete

who taught me Jazz,

who pointed me to Charlie Parker

and the edgy bitterness of Brown Ale.

Mrs Todd next door

was forever sweeping

leaves along the garden path

her fallen husband loved to tread.

Such days:

the smoke of A4 Pacifics in the aftermath of war,

the trail of local history on the birthmarked street.

And I have loved you all my life

and will no doubt die in Danby Gardens

where all my poems were born,

just after midnight.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

JOSEPH SKIPSEY (1832-1903)

The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Hall, WestgateRoad, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE. Tel: 0191 232 2201.

JOSEPH SKIPSEY – A COMMEMORATION

Saturday 17th March from 7 – 9pm in the Library.

2012 provides several anniversaries of mining disasters so, to re-balance this a little, we’ll be holding an event celebrating the 180th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Skipsey, the Tyneside Pitman Poet. The event includes Keith Armstrong, Gary Miller (Whisky Priests), Chris Harrison with Skipsey songs, the Sawdust Jacks and pipe player Chris Ormston, with readings from Skipsey’s poetry and an account of his life. During the evening, the annual Northern Voices Joseph Skipsey Award will be presented to a deserving local writer.

In collaboration with the Poetry Society of New Zealand, Poetry Tyneside presents...

What Will I See?
by Joel Holmes Marler
(jmar306@aucklanduni.ac.nz)



My eyes are sinking
In a grey-green sea.
What will I see?
Dolphins weave between snapper
Fluttering skyward
Amid crackling sonic war-cries.
Safety is elusive;
The skin of the water
Is pierced by diving cormorants
Who whet their appetites
And turn water into wine.
But that is all.
Far from shore,
The ocean is desert.
Creatures abhor this wasteland
And only enter it
To reach warmer coastlines,
Give birth, or kill.

My eyes are sinking.
Still sinking, climbing down
To a terrifying obsidian landscape
That chokes the light with both hands,
Robbing my only power
Each inch I descend.
Clinging to light particles
Who strip to their bare electrons,
Thin and emaciated, out of their depth,
I stretch twilight to a line;
But even lines have some width,
And when the last quivering lantern is snuffed
The whole game is changed.
I am now twin babies without a mother,
In a land where shadows have jaws.

The journey down continues.
Though without sight
There is no sensation of descent;
Only one of suspension
Of both movement and time.
I am conscious only of my own consciousness
And without the competition of the visual
My thoughts have mushroomed into titans
That eddy around me as a sphere of rainbows,
Rutting with each other for my attention.
They have become my world
And they protect me from the real world
Of vampire squid and hagfish,
Transforming anything that strays too close
To these unfamiliar neon colours
Into a violent flash of light
That chases Darkness into her cave, for a moment,
Until she rallies and reclaims her land.
But I do not notice this.
I do not notice the real world -
To me, my world is now the real world.
The truth is boring.
It only offers snapper scales,
Fluttering downward from the past
Like grotesque confetti.

My thoughts continue to swell,
Erasing all they envelop
Except the immutable granite floor
Of the Earth itself.
The ocean eventually brims
With a cacophony of colours.
They are venomous sea snakes
Who writhe in pleasure
In consuming the Pacific.
Unlike real sea snakes, however,
They are not bound by water.
Imagination is only restricted by itself,
And they soar into the air,
Coagulating into waves
That glitter above islands
With sparkling malevolence
Before extinguishing them
In one awesome swoop.
My eyes throb with megalomania,
Loving this war of the worlds,
But unable to conquer gravity.
Still slowly sinking
To the bottom of a sea.

I at last flop onto bedrock.
The world is encapsulated in light -
It is the Las Vegas of the Milky Way
And even the Sun
Dips his head in respect.
But I cannot swallow the Earth itself
Like a lozenge;
I can only eradicate its surface detail.
My eyes will dim with time,
Clinging to light particles
As the sea inks over once again.
But when the last quivering lantern is snuffed
The whole game is changed,
And the land will rumble with laughter.

Snow

Threnody of snow through cables


Slung as monstrous garrottes between


Hunch-shouldered and nethered pylons,




Earth becoming silenced beneath


Fleecy quilting, embroided with


Tyre tread threads along seamless roads.




Urgent dashes of council grit


Sprayed like civic sick spewed across


Otherwise sober pavements. Youths




Drift in and out a cone of light


Yellow as dog-piss beneath soft


Street lamp. A cold confetti spills




Over them, a celebration


Of their mutual vow of life.


They giggle at swaddled oldies




Trudging by, huddled and hapless,


Oblivious that a sowing


Of snow is also a reaping




And how, without exception, each


Flake has its own unique bouquet,


Easily missed in a blizzard.




                                              Dave Alton

Train Lovers

Maris O'Rourke, a New Zealander, has been writing poetry for four years. She has published in Takahç, Poetry New Zealand, Bravado, Shot Glass Journal (USA), International Literary Quarterly (UK) and Side Stream. She was the inaugural featured poet in the NZPS's (New Zealand Poetry Society) 'a fine line'. In 2010 she was runner-up in the Auckland NZSA (New Zealand Society of Authors) Sonnet competition and awarded an NZSA mentorship. In 2011 she was Second in the Robert Burns Poetry Competition; awarded Highly Commended in the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize; and First place in the South Island Writers Association (SIWA) National Competition



I blame Mr Foster.
Eager eight year olds
we ran to his classes anticipating
unknown journeys to come.


Unruly spirals of red hair.
Dashing matching moustache
from his World War II pilot days.
Slow smile starting from his smoky grey eyes.
He was easily diverted, especially in Maths,
with a question about trains.


He’d pull out the maps.
Trace tracks with his finger.
Sing the names.
Like music.
Like poetry.

We racketed up alongside the Nile
on slatted wooden seats
to the end of the line at Aswan.
Sailed slowly back on a red-sailed felucca
a huge Nubian at the helm
in a white galabiyya.


Entranced.
Enchanted.
We hung on every word
of all the things he’d done and seen.


We rocked along the wide-gauge Trans-Siberian railway
in Edwardian splendour
all the way to Vladivostock.
Pulling back red velvet curtains to see
Cossacks galloping across
the great steppes on wild horses.


Escapes conjured up nightly
on bombing raids to Berlin.
Like smoke.
Like dreams.

FOOTBALL DIARY - MORE FROM THE ARCHIVE!

Verse too

While most Newcastle fans will no doubt go drinking after Wednesdays's Champions League tie at PSV Eindhoven, Keith Armstrong, will go to a poetry reading.

The 51-year-old poet and Toon nut will be performing his own works in an all night cafe in Eindhoven, with topics ranging from Jackie Milburn to Hughie Gallacher. Goodness knows how they will go down if Newcastle win.

Keith was invited to perform by the Dutch poet Bart FM Droog, whom he met while visiting the Cuckoo Club in Groningen, Newcastle's twin town. So, when PSV play in Newcastle on November 5, Keith has invited Bart and three other performers, including a didgeridoo player, to do their stuff at a poetry reading in Newcastle.

Hopefully Bart will find a quiet place to stay. For when Keith and his fellow poet Ian Horn slept on the floor of Bart's squat, the avid Magpie got in a flap during the night. Recalls Keith: "We were woken up by three budgies mating in a cage in a corner."

(Martin Thorpe, The Guardian, (UK), 18-10-97)

from the archive: poetry meets jazz

LAUNCH OF A UNIQUE POETRY & JAZZ COLLABORATION

FEATURING:

THE NEW SAFE SEXTET

WITH NORTH EAST POETS:

KEITH ARMSTRONG,  JOHN EARL ,  IAN HORN ,  MICHAEL STANDEN.

SPECIAL GUESTS:  JACKIE KAY,  FRANK MESSINA.

BRIDGE HOTEL,  NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE , THURSDAY 5TH DECEMBER 2002.

THE BAND:

Trumpet                                  Don Forbes

Tenor Saxophone                 John Rowland

Alto Saxophone                    Paul Gowland

Baritone Saxophone            Danny Veitch

Guitar                                     Andy Pattinson

Bass Guitar                           Stuart Davies

Piano                                      Alan Laws

Percussion                           Dave Francis

POETRY & MUSIC SET:

1. ‘Because I Drink Too Much’ by Keith Armstrong; music composed by Don Forbes, using ‘Bah Lues For U’s’.

2. ‘Afternoon In Amsterdam Bar’ by Ian Horn; music ‘Little Blue Eyes’ composed by Don Forbes.

3. ‘Sugar Daddy’ by Ian Horn; music composed by Don Forbes.

4. ‘The Poet Of Rain’ by John Earl; music composed by Don Forbes.

5. ‘Drips’ by Michael Standen; music ‘Rollano’ composed by Juan Lazaro Menadas.

6. ‘New Idea’ by Michael Standen; music composed by Don Forbes.

7. ‘The 8.5 Brought Us Ears And Feet’ by John Earl; music ‘Mark Time’ composed by Kenny Wheeler. 

8. ‘Lockerbie’ by Keith Armstrong; music composed by Don Forbes.  

"Still the Sea Rolls On" at the Mining Institute

On Thursday 26^th January, the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers hosted a book launch. The publication, "Still the Sea Rolls On", has been compiled and edited by Keith Armstrong and Peter Dixon. The sub-title, "The Hartley Pit Calamity of 1862", explains why the Institute’s Neville Hall was such an appropriate venue.

The book explores the history of the tragedy and marks its 150^th anniversary with poems, photographs and illustrations. The poems range from Joseph Skipsey’s, "The Hartley Calamity" written and read by him to raise funds for the bereaved families, to reflections written by poets of today.

With the disappearance of coal mining none of today’s writers have direct experience of the industry, although many can claim close family connections. My own father worked down the pit on the South Yorkshire coalfield during World War 2 as a Bevan Boy.

So this was no academic historical exercise for the contributors, and a common theme of the evening was community. Rather than that artificial construct, "The Big Society", the Hartley Calamity was a true expression of people coming together for mutual aid and support. The socialism of disaster, the best of people brought out by the worst of circumstances, rather than the social disaster presently being perpetrated by the Coalition government.

The book is itself the product of collaboration, as was the evening that launched it. A well informed and informative lecture on The Hartley Disaster preceded the well attended reading. The evening was enlivened by an eclectic mix of songs accompanied by both acoustic and electric guitars, along with the soulful music of the Northumbrian pipes.

Overall, this was a fitting tribute and memorial, even down to the day of the week. As Joseph Skipsey wrote: 
"Twas on the Thursday morning, on

The first month of the year,

When there befell the thing that well

May rend the heart to hear."

Dave Alton

A recent visit by the New Zealand poet Janis Freegard included a meeting with Tyneside poets Keith Armstrong and Dave Alton. This is part of a developing association with the New Zealand Poetry Society.

Janis Freegard was born in South Shields, England, but has lived in New Zealand most of her life. Her poetry has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Poetry NZ, The North (UK), Turbine, Glottis, JAAM, Rain Dog (UK) and Surface Online. She also writes short fiction and won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award in 2001. She lives in Wellington.

The following poems are taken from http://www.nzpoetsonline.homestead.com/

Spiderhouse


spiders determinedly

delicately

shroud the walls

this one must surely be a leaf

that one has wrapped mosquitoes

all along the clothesline


they wait on the porch


how much of your

spider quota

might you have eaten now –

the ones that crawl

into your mouth

when you’re sleeping?


Turtles


Some things aren’t meant to be understood:

Like electricity or war

You know they’re going on somewhere

But it’s best not to think about it

It could make your hair curl


Ann explains the turtle theory of light:

Behaving neither like a wave nor a particle

Light is more like a great string of turtles

Each holding the next one’s tail in its mouth

Like the pin in a grenade


What they do when they get to a light switch is

Anybody’s guess


The Slattern


She hasn’t driven her vacuum cleaner around the rooms;

the dust sits thick.

Piled up dishes will be taken care of soon.


Hillocks of washing swell and lie in ambush;

windows are opaque with grime;

the fridge’s fruiting moulds are eager to be let loose.


Newspaper castles yellow in the sunny afternoons;

the bottle stack threatens;

a compost bucket barely contains its ooze.


Blue emerges from an ancient plastic tube

atop a slimy sink.

The slattern sings. Loudly and out of tune.


Trichotillomania


she plucks out

each eyebrow hair

one by one

with platinum tweezers


and stands them up

on the black lacquer dressing table:

her row of soldiers

first line of defence


above them, framed

in the oblong mirror:

her deforested forehead

wondering eyes

inconsequential nose

the fleshy lips protected

by a layer of down

(now that would have to go)

her smooth neck

her far too animal body

POETRY TYNESIDE MEETS POETRY NEW ZEALAND IN NEWCASTLE

left to right: dave alton, keith armstrong, janis freegard, peter clayworth
photo: peter dixon

POETRY TYNESIDE LINKS WITH POETRY NEW ZEALAND

"She Quakes" is the first contribution in what is intended to be a fruitful link with the New Zealand Poetry Society. This poem is particularly poignant as Tynebard was in Christchurch in December 2010 during the series of earthquakes, two more significant ones of which struck there recently.



SHE QUAKES


Earth groans,


her trembling begins,


her tectonic plates shift.






Ground cracks and leaps,


burping sludge bubbles upwards,


locked energy, released in a noisy belch.






Her movement, restrained for centuries,


escapes, in a series of sideway jolts,


stretching her reach, testing her strength,


- she quakes.






On her surface, green and warm,


above her inner heat and energy,


small creatures scatter.






Constructions


                            collapse


                    topple


            and pancake


to the ground.




The creatures are crushed,


cut and burnt.


Gases escape and ignite.






Rivers seek new paths,


waste and water break free.






Blocks of stone fall from


where man has put them:


heaped on her surface,


broken, disorderly.






Bells of iron shout as they fall.






Still stretching and moving,


she continues to quake,


seeking a new position to rest in.







Deryn Pittar (deryn@xtra.co.nz)

FROM THE ARCHIVE: INDIAN POETRY WITH THE TYNESIDE POETS

DIARY DATES

The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Hall, Westgate

Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE. Tel: 0191 232 2201.

DIARY DATES – NOT TO BE MISSED

THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 2012

THE NEW HARTLEY COLLIERY DISASTER

To commemorate the anniversary of the 1862 disaster a programme of events are planned in the area. Norman Jackson’s talk at the Institute on Thursday 26th January will be supplemented by poems and music, the programme for the evening is:

5:30pm Tea and Coffee in the Library.

6:00pm Lecture by Norman Jackson.

6:40pm Questions.

Adjourn to the Library. Buffet and drinks.

7:00pm Launch of a new book about the Hartley Calamity, edited by Keith Armstrong and published by Northern Voices Community Projects with the support of North Tyneside Council.

Keith Armstrong, Catherine Graham and others will read poems and stories from the new book including Joseph Skipsey's Hartley ballad, with singer/songwriter Gary Miller performing Keith’s Hartley lyric and other mining songs and piper Chris Ormston performing his Lament for Hartley and other appropriate tunes.

Copies of the book will be available for sale during the event.

8:30/9:00 close.

COMMEMORATIONS IN MEMORY OF THE MINERS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE NEW HARTLEY PIT DISASTER INCLUDE:

14 January 2012: New Hartley Memorial Hall,

Beeswing in concert. Also featuring Keith Armstrong.

15 January 2012: 11am, Memorial Service at St. Alban's Church.

15 January 2012: 4pm, Memorial Service at New Hartley Memorial Hall accompanied by Ellington Brass Band. The new Memorial Banner will be unveiled.

15 January 2012: 7.30 – 9.30pm Whitley Bay Playhouse, a concert by the Grimethorpe Brass Band.

16 January 2012: 11am, A short memorial service will be held at the New Hartley pit head in the memorial garden.

JOSEPH SKIPSEY – A COMMEMORATION

Saturday 17th  March from 7 – 9pm in the Library.

2012 provides several anniversaries of mining disasters so, to re-balance this a little, we’ll be holding an event celebrating the 180th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Skipsey, the Tyneside Pitman Poet.

The event includes Keith Armstrong, Gary Miller(Whisky Priests) and pipe player Chris Ormston, with readings from Skipsey’s poetry and an account of his life.

During the evening, the annual Northern Voices Joseph Skipsey Award will be presented to a deserving local writer.

GREY’S MONUMENT

Grey –

this man and his brain’s conception,

clasped in stone.

Disdainful figure

raised

on a firm dry finger;

proud-stiff

above a time-bent avenue of dwindling lights.

The Earl’s pale forehead is cool and cloudy;

unblinking,

he views us all (as we view him)

in the same old, cold, way –

through the wrong end of a battered telescope,

through the dusty lens of history.

Strip away the tinsel

And this city’s heart is stone.

Keith Armstrong

Night Watch

Town of a thousand holes, at the bottom


Of each a dark boggart lurks cunningly


Creating mischief for careless souls who’re


Simply passing. Urban plastic tendrils


Squirm, coil and wrap around the bed ridden


Riding alive through comatose dreaming.


All the while, tower blocks round and about,


Facades irritated by rashes of light


Wind is scratching, rain hardly soothing,


Pluck up their concrete roots and, like golems,


Lurch along through pedestrian precincts,


Passed shops and stores blinded by steel shutters


Billed with vainglorious posters proclaiming


Imminent revolution, this week’s sales,


Or the immanence of God and the end


Of Days. Even as ungainly tower blocks


Retreat beyond traffic lights, boggarts


Emerge from excavations flimsily


Fenced round with barbers’ poles, in such a way


Shadows might ease free from corporeal


Bodies responsible for casting them.


Night is the product of curtains being drawn


Against streets that have to be abandoned


To darkness, light so selfishly horded


In living rooms, in the eyes of voyeurs


Who do not realise televisions


Are vampires that exist by sucking life-time


From their fascinated victims. Too late


They switch off, for it’s bed time, deathbed time.


The night watch is running slow, leaden hands


Weighing every heavy second, holding


Each one just too long, making the minutes


Fall behind the clock. A hospital cot


Easily contains these remains of a man,


So little of him left, his shadow gone.


Even breath can be no longer his own,


Generous town sharing its air with him


Via one of those serpentine urban tendrils


Worming its way through the wall to his nostrils.


Hardly a burden with so little left


Him to draw from his account. Family


Come and sit and sit and go in relays


Of concern, keeping his lips barely moist


With final kisses and cool water soaked


Into pink sponge swabs on thin lollysticks


Looking like unspun candyfloss. Night watch


Knits or reads or plugs into World Service


While drowsing on the one comfy armchair.


For all that time is tardy dawn still comes,


Shift changes, while night and day will remain


All the same to him even as tower blocks


Step back into place, boggarts burrow back


Into earth and the curtains are drawn back,


Back and back, releasing light from their rooms


To illuminate awakening streets


And the living realising they are so.


                                                               Dave Alton