LIFE ACCRUED

 Sometimes poems write themselves. Sometimes I do not know where the ideas come from. Sometimes they arrive almost fully formed. 
This is the case with this weeks poems.
They were written on successive days.
I have no idea where my head was, nor what sparked their genesis.

When she was older

their marriage over

the children a pawn

in their ongoing game.

She would tell her lovers

how she had spent her

twenties middle aged

building her dream house.

Never brick by brick

those skills were bought in

plumbers and plasterers

as need dictated.

Her husband to be

owned a spit of good land

so visions filled her head

of a beautiful house.

As if geography

could grant them happiness.

The tradesmen built well

for that was their skill

the walls straight and true.

The opposite of the life

lived within them.

She would hurry home late

checked her phone to leave no trace

he would work and drink

occasionally unfaithful.

Life accrued around them.

One day in her thirties

she claimed she saw with new eyes

walked out, took the children

he had to sell the house

to cover costs and her demands

on his last night there

amid all the packing cases

he taunted himself

with alternate endings.

He left the key with

the estate agent

then drove away

his life packed in his car.

It seemed to me that my main function with this poem was to sort out line lengths. I am not sure if it is complete. I suspect that it nearly is.
The next day this arrived.

To Make Matters Worse

She announced that this was typical of him,

a behaviour to be expected at such a time,

one that placed him at the centre.

He had never opened his mouth,

and so remained silent,

chalked the day up in the column

Reasons to leave her.

She had no idea she had been weighed and found wanting again.

I think the phrase "weighed and found wanting" surfaced, quickly followed by the kernel of the poem.
It does not happen like that often. 
It is not long until the launch of Brooke Sharkey's new album so here's a couple of live videos to whet your appetite.

This is a video of a house concert. Sterling stuff. She's playing London's Jazz Cafe on the 27 October and St. John's Church in Totnes 28th October.
I'll see you there.

THE DAYS AFTER THE FLOOD

Here is a revised poem. You can read the last draft here.

Taking the Tow Path from the Allotment

Just before the main road crosses over,

on a day so still,

the canal could be a ribbon window on a submerged world,

I see a tent upside down, under the water,

all taut with tensioned poles, slowly sliding by.

The days after the flood must have been like this.

The works of man obliterated,

less debris each sunrise.

I decide on a photograph,

reach for my phone,

then realise there is a man

camped under the bridge,

sat stock still in the chaos of his life,

and I stop.

He stares into the pellucid waters,

his face tells his story,

and I walk on,

past the three people with the bottle of Lambrusco

and little else,

back into my own life.

The beginning is now, I feel, clearer. The second stanza has lost the last two lines which took the poem off in a different direction and the last stanza has been tided up.
Thanks must again go to The Secret Poets for their invaluable assistance.
On Wednesday evening Juncture 25 met for the first time in a while and Gram Davis facilitated a fascinating workshop out of which this poem came.

1976

How do I get there?

And where is there anyway?

I am here.

This is not the place I want to be.

[At this point please note:

I have no powers of reflection.]

His situation is alien to me,

I invent the reasons after I act.

I know there are other ways to live

so stop eating meat and start to drop acid

search for a door to else where,

anywhere but this northern industrial town.

I know there cannot be an afterlife

but I meditate twice a day

to seek an enlightenment I would not recognise

if it rang my front door bell.

There is a way out, but not his path,

he kept borrowing to pay what he owed until he ran away.

I will leave under my own steam,

but not just yet,

four years will pass before I find my trajectory.

This is very much the first rough draft. In the workshop we were asked to think about a specific year and to answer a number of prompts. I have no idea why I chose 1976. I am refining the poem- watch this space.
In view of this posts title I think a little Jackson Browne is called for. Here is Before The Deluge as performed by Moving Hearts from 1984.

I have to include a live clip of Christy Moore singing what has to be one of the most moving songs about political prisoners.

EVERY ABSTRACT MADE CONCRETE

Thanks must go, once again, to The Secret Poets for their invaluable help with the revising of this first poem.

Five Types of Waiting

Queues are an obvious example,

even though there's only five minutes

before the last train leaves the station,

and there are five people in front of you.

A childhood in Widnes provides many opportunities:

half-day closing;

shut down Sundays;

endless afternoons of school rugby league.

Clock watching at work may indicate

an over familiarity with the task,

or signal that it's time to find another job.

Then there's waiting for a miracle,

as I have been doing these past days,

hoping the blood vessels in your head will heal

and stop this kaleidoscoping of your personality

into an infinite parade of anxious strangers.

Oh yes, and there's the time before the ambulance comes

to take you to a place of safety,

now they have found you a bed.

This last seems the longest.

You can read the first draft here.
So what has changed?
The title for a start, it was originally Different Types of Waiting.
The there is has been abbreviated to there's-twice.
And, of course, the last line has been removed.
To make a poem more effective you need to assess every word and ask if the poem still works with that word removed? If the answer is yes, then that word is unnecessary and it has to go.
You can apply this process to whole lines. Every poet I know has a collection of favourite lines that did not fit the poem.

Now a new poem. This arose out of a chance remark by a drama teacher, who commented that the more props you use in improvised performances the more can go wrong and strangely the less believable the situation is. At least that is my memory of what he had said.
It inspired this:

The more props, the more trouble, he had told us.

But we needed to believe,

our every abstract made a concrete object,

which would make the illusion work,

and fool us in the process.

Of course it did not turn out like that,

the changes under rehearsed.

Clarity vanished under the audiences stare.

We died a death on stage,

and lived to repeat the same mistakes in life.

All the photographs in this post come from a recent visit to Margate. The first three from The Turner Contemporary, where I saw an excellent exhibition featuring some of Paul Nash's work.
This week I've been listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens. Here's Should Have Known Better from Carrie & Lowell. What a beautiful lp.

Until next time.

THE PRICE OF ADMISSION

 

Here's a poem that I started in America earlier this summer.
I think it is self explanatory.

THE PRICE OF ADMISSION

It is hardly surprising

I have a bullet in my hand.

This is America after all.

It lies uneasily my palm,

a combination of brass cylinder,

and enough lead to cause mayhem,

but it will never participate

in a lethal, kinetic ballet.

Impotent, inert, chained to a ring

whose key opens a door

onto a room carpeted

with the skins of cows.

The place I was staying was carpeted with the skins of cows. The poem was sparked by the bullet on the key chain and wrote itself. I have to thank the Secret Poets for their input and for the idea of tidying the poem up into three stanzas.

I leave you with Anna Ternheim.

TWO TRAIN POEMS

The photographs from this post were taken on a journey from Madrid to Barcelona earlier in the year. I stopped over in Zaragoza for a few days on the way and visited the Goya Museum. If you get the chance to go, take it. The museum has a collection of Goya's etchings and they are superb. 

This first poem was written at this year's Purbeck Valley Folk Festival. I had travelled there by train and the substance of the poem is the announcements that were made on the platform or on the train.

Let The Train Take The Strain

It is clear the train company worries about me.

They advised I hold the handrail

when I climbed the stairs [twice],

counselled I carry water,

as the weekend will be unseasonably hot,

and if I am taken ill to disembark at the next station,

as it will be easier for them to offer me assistance.

Obviously they have heard that I forget things,

and so repeatedly reminded me

not to leave my bags or case unattended,

as they might be damaged or destroyed by the security services.

Also I am to mind the gap,

and let people exit before I attempt to board.

As I am sitting in the quiet carriage

I must not use my mobile, play music,

or annoy other passengers with the sound of my voice.

It is a pity that the railway company

does not practice what it preaches.

It is a trifle poem and does not warrant more than one reading.
This second poem was written after I took another train to Totnes. It had been sunny in Taunton but as we pulled into Exeter it began to rain.
It will teach me not to check the weather forecast.

The rain surprised me,

ambushed as I was

by my own indolence.

The summer, falling hot,

had led me to believe

such days as these

could go on forever,

until outside of Exeter,

the rain began to freckle the train windows.

The first intimation of what is to come,

the axial tilt and the fall towards the shortest day.

There is a symmetry here – rejoice.

I do have a sense of the seasons turning. Purbeck Festival always seems the end of the summer. The fall towards the shortest day is significant for me as it means it is the start of the slow turn towards the long, light, warm nights of May and June.

Sticking with the train theme here's Billy Bragg and Joe Henry with The Midnight Special off their new lp. It's out later this month and consists of songs they recorded as they travelled from Chicago by train.
They are on tour and well worth catching if you can.