I’ve been putting this poem together for some time. A couple of sections have been posted here already. Another section appeared in the Breathless Anthology as far back as 1994, although most of the poetry is more recent. I read the whole thing for the first time this evening at the regular Le Mondo Bongo poetry evening at Sip Coffee and Eat in Richmond.
Pennine Chain
1.
The labels are confusing:
this is no longer the corner
of the street where I live
although the signs are still there,
the mental Post-It notes,
and the feeling that if
I want a pint of milk
I must walk that way,
turn left, turn right –
two minutes at the most.
The whole is overlaid
with lines of thought
that reassert themselves unbidden.
The park across the road
where the children used to play
while I kept half an eye
‘s still there as is the man
(much older now) who walks
a different dog.
I never knew his name
and it strikes me now that
things on the periphery
are easier to reinstate:
the man, the park,
the corner of the street,
these things remain in place
whereas it is impossible
to visualise a version of oneself
shaped by so many small decisions
that never came to pass although
perhaps I catch a glimpse (back view)
of a man about my age
(his hair’s beginning to turn grey)
dressed in an overcoat,
who walks away.
He could be anyone I never knew.
2. Tubular Bells
Time was, when you had
to lower down the needle
slowly, wait until the point,
with a crack, engaged the groove
and set out on its spiral journey
to the centre.
I remember how (it seems
so real) we sat around,
drinking cans of beer,
all couples, and how we felt so old.
We were in love, perhaps,
but underneath it all
lay desperation, fear.
The piano starts to play.
I watch her look into his eyes
and (cliché or not)
this is the memory from that time
I feel most intensely
as he slips a ring onto her finger
(so conventional, yet so sincere).
That was before the Fall,
rebellious jukebox,
o’erwhelmed us all
with floods and whirlwinds of
tempestuous sound.
Sometimes even now
I wonder what became of them,
although I’m not sure I ever
even knew their names.
Years later, driving North along
the B6265,
the hills are invisible
in the darkness.
I’m peering down
the headlamp beams
to see the bends.
Bebop plays on the cassette
(Thelonius Monk
stabs at the keys)
and in the back
two small children
strapped in kiddie-seats
are sleeping. There is
so much for me to do,
so little time to think;
certainly no time
to press the rewind button
and reflect.
Today, same place
but driving South,
there’s none of that.
The audio system’s set
to shuffle-play.
The choice of track’s
determined by an algorithm:
it’s just a case
of wait and see.
And so it happens that
the piano starts to play
just as in 1973
and I find myself wondering
yet again
what lay in store
for the girl and boy I hardly knew
back then.
3. The Barns
Joseph’s Barn
His cow and calf
overwintered there
and often Joseph, too,
spent the night
after a skinfull,
dreaming in the straw
that his wife
might lay him down
a son, there,
in the manger.
William’s Barn
He liked the feel
of the stones
in his hands.
He built the windowless walls
higher and higher
shutting out the world
and creating a darkness
for himself.
Susan’s Barn
She still inhabits the cage
of her lover’s bones.
She still treads the paths
around the place
his heart used to be.
She still works
what they had:
the barn, the cow, the field.
Sarah’s Barn
In summer,
when the rising sun
shines through the empty door,
you’ll still hear Sarah singing.
In autumn,
when the wind blows leaves
against the outer wall,
although the barn’s now filled with straw,
you’ll still hear Sarah singing.
In winter,
when the snow falls through
the blue-sky roof between the beams
and one more stone falls from the wall,
you’ll still hear Sarah singing.
In spring,
when water runs between
the stones and weeds find root
and sheep find shelter by the wall,
you’ll still hear Sarah singing,
although there is no pail to fill
and the mouths to be fed
are now closed.
Peter’s Barn
is now the home
of a television producer,
who sits before the fire where once
a lamb fell to earth
between the legs of its mother.
Michael’s Barn
Three gold coins
he found in the earth floor.
He gave them to his son,
who left to find work
in the town.
Barn
I remember my making –
a growing shadow in a ring of stones.
Since then, a stone
here and there, a rotting beam, the slate
that slips by inches every year:
the light creeps in. It seems to be
a universal principle.
Stone is my mantra.
Solid ground my only reassurance
that I’m part of something bigger.
One day I’ll be full of light:
a field of stones
for people to pick over
in search of artefacts.
4.
My favourite hole in the ground
is on top of Harkerside Fell.
It’s not very big but
you can lie down in it, just,
so you’re out of the wind.
If you look over the edge
you can see for miles
only don’t get too comfortable
or one of the straggly nettles
that live there
(vicious bastards that they are)
will bite you on the arse,
even through your trousers –
so take care.
5.
My imaginary flying machine
lifts me just high enough
to clear the garden fence
and carries me silently
through the darkness.
I control by telepathy
the invisible engine:
I tell it to follow
the line of the streetlights
along the empty streets
that lead out of town.
Once over the fields
I steer by the stars
until I hear but can’t see
the water flowing over the stones
of a stream-bed.
This I follow,
plunging with the waterfall,
leveling out
as the stream joins the river,
startling an owl
from its tree on the river-bank.
Sweeping under the arch
of a bridge, where all is invisible
and where the water
echoes for a moment, I emerge:
and here the river widens, merges
into the dark mass
of the sea and I turn
up into the sky,
banking to follow
the curve of Draco’s tail
as it weaves between the Bears.
(c) Sackerson, 2019
