Bridge Over The Aire Book 2
STANDING IN EDEN
1
Poetry claimed me young on Skegness beach
Before I was born I answered her cry
For a lost child still in the womb still
As the seawave journeying green upon green
Swollen in my mother’s side lashed and
Tongue-tied on a raft of premonition
Trying to survive my birth as the soul
Survives death turned in on the tide high
Watermarked as a bride to my beginning.
In April rain the banks were white narcissi
Yellow daffodils in Chapeltown alyssum at the
Foot of every tree white bands round the boles
Against the blackout still after fifty years
In the copse at Chapeltown the fences down the
Undergrowth cleared the bark exposed with scars
Like stars.
I am grounded in Chapeltown from dawn to dusk
Curfewed by my body’s husk I dream of ‘Swan Lake’
Car after car swan after swan across the stage
The mad conductor’s
Flying from the wings fading on the last chords
In the hyaline air by the crystal river where
We surrendered to its flow.
2
In Roundhay’s Canal Gardens go a pair of black swans
Scarlet beak to scarlet beak bend by the willow
Necks arched like the great bow of Odysseus;
Ithaca, I have returned, my Penelope lost, the tapestry
Of my journey torn, Troy long gone, a blind memory
In Homer’s song: I sing of where I was born, war-torn,
Blitzed, the iron railings stripped, the munitions
Factory at Barnbow closed.
3
There is a photograph in the archives
Of the city museum marked ‘Shed, Falmouth
Place, 1937′; it is your street, Margaret,
The creosoted palings and cart turned on
Its end, the shafts raised like a memorial
Stone, our last memory gone.
4
For fish and chips
We went past ‘The Mansions’
Half a dozen enormous
Victorian houses abandoned
To the poorest of the poor
With front steps missing
Holes in the halls so big
You had to jump and
Rats the size of cats.
The children who lived there
Pushed coal in broken prams
Their jerseys had more
Holes than wool
They had impetigo
We passed them quickly
On
the other side.5
In the chemist’s shop
Stood the huge retorts
Of red and green
In the coal fire glowed
‘The Burning Fiery Furnace’
Against the binyard wall
Margaret played ball
Deftly lifting her leg
Passing the ball beneath
Catching it again
In faultless rhythm.
6
Behind the colonnade
Under the bridge
Margaret and I
Took off our clothes
In wonder and swam
In the crystal river.
A patchwork quilt
Of mossed stones
Crossed beneath
The bridge
Light strobed
Twilight enfolded us
Our tent well hidden
We stood in Eden
With the stars.
7
Causey stones for pack horse roads
Cut and stacked have waited two
Hundred years for the horse sledge
To drag them over Todmorden top
Untouched by hoof or foot they are
Shaped and polished by the rain
And wind.
They are the North
And cannot be altered
The surfaces of change
Transient, the gloss
Cannot last, the wind
Says no.
8
Item: one photograph
Of South Accom
Taken by the City
Engineers, relating to
A cycling accident,
June 3rd. 1905
9
The grate that trapped
The cyclist’s wheel
Is still in place
But nothing else
Except the vast
Brick wall dividing
The road in two.
10
A novelty then
The camera drew
Crowds from the Bridgefields
A boy in an Eton collar
His bowler-hatted father
Girls with braided curls
Dresses to their ankles
A delivery boy
With a brimming basket
A man with a beer pail
In either hand.
11
The long exposure
Caught every movement
In a single frame
The pensioner shuffling
With his stick
The girl tying
A ribbon
In glowing sepia
A tiny kingdom
Swept away before
I was born.
12
Unnoticed and unwatched
We clambered over the remains
Of the Bridgefields gathering
Jamjarfuls of dandelions
Placing them with reverence
By broken grates
In Pompeii’s streets.13
One hot summer night
Terry boasted with
Ten year old knowingness
That he’d fuck Mary
Who was six but strangely
Experienced in sex
Both slipped away
Behind the hillocks
Of the Hollows.
He reappeared grinning
“I put it up her
Ask her if you
Don’t believe me”
Shyly Mary put down
Her head in passive
Acquiescence.
14
Leaning over the wall
Staring at the cables
Reeled on giant drums
I looked at Margaret
Laying back, pillowing
Her head against a
Grassy mound, pulling
Clover leaves for luck,
Her eyes distantly
Dreaming while I
Made up stories.
15
We ran together
Holding hands
Up and over
Round and down
In front and behind
The hills of the Hollows
With the spirits
Of the children
Of the Bridgefields
The boys in Eton collars
The girls in long
White dresses with
Pails of milk.
16
Even the Hollows
Are gone now
The Go Kart’s Stadium’s
Wire mesh set in concrete,
Placards round the concourse,
The Readymix factory’s
Dumb towers, the DIY yard
And ‘Beer Paradise’ board,
The street sign
‘Bridgewater Place’
Lying on its side.
17
Wallflowers
Lost and faded
Beige and sepia
Orange and maroon
Old-fashioned flowers
For a tired mind.
18
“Millionnaires of Leeds!
You are your brothers’ keepers.”
Finders keepers, losers weepers
Loidis in Elmete
Leeds upon Aire
The smell of molten tar
On a May morning
Puts the road back
Forty years.
19
The Bridgewaters and the Falmouths
Are scheduled for clearance
The word has gone out
From the City Fathers
In the Council Chamber
To the City Engineer
The last photograph ever
Has been taken by order
Half the houses boarded up
Half with chimneys smoking.
20
Grass is growing
Between the cobbles
Clotheslines are empty
The props have fallen
Our mams raised up
Like a draw-bridge
For the coal-carts
To pass under.
21
Beneath the City Station
Under the dark arches
The river rushes
Through the catacombs
Of vaulted stone.
By the new museum
The weir is cold and clear
Howarths’ timber yard’s
Sawdust smells
Hang in the trembling
Currents of air.
On Hunslet Road
A heat haze:
Walk with a lighter tread
I hear an angel’s
Heartbeat overhead.
22
The wind holds my hand
Diffident, tremulous,
Margaret, I sense your
Fingers touching mine
Tip to tip.
Nancy came too
And I had to kiss
The both of you
On the cheek
Behind the wagon
Wanting to get you alone
On a slow boat to China
Get you and keep you
In my arms evermoreAuntie Nellie’s hands
Thrummed the tunes
On the black and white
Upright, sheet music
From Banks in County Arcade
Gleaming in Burmantofts
Faience tiles, marble and onyx.
23
May blossoms hang
In Mill Hill churchyard
Over the ultramarine
Signboard; in Trinity Church
I share God with no-one
Stained glass
Colours the silence.
24
Margaret, Nancy and I
Had always played together
When we went walking
In Knostrop, climbing
The ruined walls
Of Knostrop Hall
We went to wee
Together, it seemed
So natural, we had
Nothing to hide
But I would never
Tell a soul.
The other boys
Bored me with
Their talk of cricket
Len Hutton and Leeds United
I learned motherhood
From Margaret25
Margaret, I miss you,
Forty years on
I kiss you.
26
Margaret, there is a plantation east of Eden
With saplings and shrubs where the Falmouths
And Bridgewater Place once stood; the Council’s
Transpennine Trail begins by the Aire’s side
Where we walked and talked and learned to love.
In the Sunday stillness a chaffinch calls
“Are you there? Are you there?”
Hurling its shaped sounds in ecstasy across
The river from the haunted mill.
“I am here, I am waiting”
Replies the song-shadow of my dream.
27
I am part of the green
I am the answering voice
I am the parting in the cloud
I am the leaves of spring.
28
Here is the last remnant of Hunslet’s goodsyard,
The immovable buttresses in timber and stone,
The bridge and the rails are gone but still seven
Arches stand like Rome’s seven hills, nothing can
Shift them, there is no road beyond the barbed-wire
Fence, they are a shelter for memory and Margaret and me
The Hunslet-haven-heaven of our love to be
I taste the mist in the morning
Utterly alone in this deserted ending.
I am the loneliest man on earth.
The last and first, alpha and omega,
Beginning and end.
29
Margaret, I will pluck you from the crowd,
Together we will walk by the Aire again
I will never leave it, it is the only place
On earth where I can breathe, red hot pokers
Still grow in the abandoned gardens of Knostrop,
Lupin valley will glow again with blossom,
Late narcissi bend in the wind.
30
In Golden Acre Park no more
The miniature Railway, boating
On the lake with motor launch
Or self-propelled boat,
No more the water chute,
Pitch and puff golf, aviary
Paddling pool, aeroflight,
Bathing pool, music tower,
All, all are gone.
The winter garden Dance Pavilion
Is gone from Golden Acre Park
Only the kingfisher’s blue flash
As it rides to its island hide
Where white swans glide.
31
The house I was born in
Is long gone
Steel and concrete bones
Of a container base
Rise from the ruins.
32
Wholesale markets
Straddle the fields
Of Snakey Lane
By the Red Road
By the Black Road.
33
Footpaths unwalked
Are decked with weeds;
Factories for frozen foods
And car batteries
Edge the silence.
34
The piggeries no more
Than corrugations
Of rust and wood
Sigh in the
Ravening wind.
35
A tethered horse
Is pawing the tired grass
Among the fork lift trucks
And oil-skinned scavengers.
36
Over the Hollows
Weeds on filled-in cellars
Cracked window-sills
At crazy angles
Are megaliths to memory.
37
By the railway cutting
Chained and padlocked
Rusty gates made
My private garden
Of threaded lupins
Pink and blue.
38
My Madeleine
Was Angel Cake
In Marks and Sparks.
39
By what was once
Ben’s Cycle Shop
I stop and stare
Across Leeds Nine
A broken wall
By Crossgreen is
All that’s left
To build on.
40
I speak like the dumb
Hear like the deaf
I have the blindman’s vision. How do I see you?
How and where?
The glow of lamplight
On your hair.
41
I am waiting for the knock
Of your hand on my heart
Too long apart it is time
To play out under the gaslight,
Under the starlight, under the
Summer sun.
42
Margaret, I am your before-dawn
Knocker-up, tapping my stick
Across your darkened window-pane.
43
I am the Capstan Cafй’s
First customer of the day
The last child ever to play
On the Hollows; Margaret, hear me,
I know on Eden Street
Your spirit is near me.
44
In the May dawn silence
I walk the cobbled road,
The houses gone for sixty years.
A single wallflower grows
On the ravaged bank.
I pluck the last leaf
Of the mauve forget-me-knot,
The market-man’s mis-spelling
Got to the matter’s heart,
Folding the leaf in my book
With the melody of Glьck.
45
The maze in Roundhay Park
Near Soldiers’ Field
Was the labyrinth I cried
To be released from:
Margaret, you ran and
Brought me out.
The maze memory grew
Into the road across
The Hollows, forty years
On I ran to meet you in
Your worn-out flower-
Patterned frock and
Black, laceless runners.
46
Reality is cold
And hard
And beautiful.
Summer’s running
Like a river
Into Crossgreen.
Euridyce, Euridyce,
Margaret, will you
Marry me?
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)