NaPoMo week 1

PART ONE
The Apprentice


0-The Fool at the rising

at the rising

you sit half cross-legged
pluck a desultory mandolin
the wind chases mist
in the reeds
carries the notes
across rat bitten allotments
the sun rises at my back
it is time to begin
my bundle is light
my feet, confident, skip
the cliff path
never miss a step


don't look down
don't look down
and you won't see the harpies
zig zagging the abyss
they brushed
your shoulder yesterday
pushed you into tomorrow
the dog barked them away
showed them the black
of his inner lips
curled his tongue
rapturously
around morning ragas

chrysanthemums flame
against an astrakhan sky
above the city called Pandemonium
the spires float, dream
of white clouds
while at their base bodies
squirm in filthy gutters
spit on their hands
and grin and bare
yellow teeth

I, The Fool, carry the lily
faithfully back to you
keep it safe from
marauding griffons
bees visit
trade their wisdom
for yellow dust
thirsty, I sip
from the golden cup
tired, I lay me down
and sleep in haystacks


at journey's end I lean
against the gates of dawn
place the flower
in your hair.


******************************
1-Snake Oil



In the time of the sickness
I left you spreadeagled
under the scarecrow on the hill
shaved smooth naked
androgynous
wrapped in shadow and red flannel
a spell scratched
on the erogenous side of your arm


the Dream Seller posed
at the stage door
Vaudeville matinee idol
hand on hip
eyed up the crowd
of admirers
played them like a fakir
with a dozen cobras to charm
he waved his silver topped cane
at the stars
threw coins stamped
with lemniscates
into the gutter, the urchins
kicked and squabbled
mesmerised, I caught
the silver cigarette case
he tossed to me.


in the pit
the snakes writhed
in figures of eight
weaving a cloth of lies
in perpetual motion
for fire eaters
and sword swallowers


What shall we be
tomorrow and tomorrow?
the ouroboros encircles
our world

I brought you back a magnolia flower chalice
brimmed with lost innocence
pentacles
and snake oil
by way
of a cure.

****************************

3-The Oracle Unlove

Proserpine sprawled on a throne
of earwiggy railway sleepers
piled haphazardly
propped up her feet
on the spoked crescent moon
of a half buried bogey wheel
willow herb and bramble
screened the black hole
at her back
where the ghosts
condemned to dig
in perpetuam
disembowel hell

pro umquam quod umquam
amen

They closed the mine down
after the accident
lovers carved initials
of immortality on the pillars
of the trilithon
at the shaft entrance
Capitalists painted
No Trespassing
By Law
on the lintel
Danger Keep Out
(of Hades)
By Order of the Parish Council
and sundry concerned bodies.

i unknotted my spotted hanky
spread my treasures
on the ground
before her
pawed at her pomegranate
stained petticoats
that stank of worms
and begged for wisdom
and a quick fix
of experience.


she refused my pennies
but showed me her knickers
and said to return
when I was old enough
to know unlove.

.

You play Chopin
on the upright pianoforte
in the parlour
lost
in the cascade of notes
tumbling
towards the stream of unconsciousness


******************************

4-Auntie Frigg's Emporium

A Shakespearian morning
lungs belt joy
across a lusty dale
the traveller with Spring
and green enough to spare
rests upon a crooked stile
to admire the patchwork fields.

Auntie Frigg takes down the shutters
shakes out her apron
sets out baskets, brooms and lanterns
lamp oil, dolly tubs
and a canary
(yellow) in a cage; marbles, mallets
iron fire dogs, anything you'd ever want
and a million things you never
thought you would. She
places her chair (windsor wheel back)
in a sun patch on the cobbles
plonks down fleshy arse
with legs akimbo
sparks up a Capstan (full strength)
waits for passing trade.

Unaware, the traveller
succumbs to temptation
browses the cornucopia
of her wares
there is no escape
he must buy his way out
of her jealous embrace.








I brought you a bowl
of lustrous glass
golden as the evening sun
a carnival of rococo colour
you stack it high
plums, peaches, figs
pomegranates, melons
persimmon
I lick juice from your lips
slowly.

********************************


5- Blind Jack

At the sign of the Bush and Pole
the traveller drinks relief
finds knowledge
in the bottom of a jug of ale


he has learned
already
the empty chair
close by the fire
with the view
of the whole
establishment
is not for him
instead he waits
on a rocky barstool
feels all eyes
upon him sideways


towards dusk Blind Jack
assumes his throne
tankard and trencher
to hand, surveys
this corner of his fiefdom
accepts his tributes
gives his orders
hands out wages
to day labourers

the itinerant searcher
of self-knowledge
begs audience
of the blind man
who sees all
for the price
of a quart of wine
and a purse of flattery.








the willow dips fresh
whips into the stream
you roll up your trousers
pluck crayfish from the stony bed
I spread my blanket
upon the wild orchids
and laugh at your delight
in your pauper's lobster.




**********************************

6-Pussy's in the well

The peal of bells
lures the traveller
to the city gates
dismembered traitors
with long dead grins
claim him
the dog cocks his leg
pisses on history


the smell of ground coffee
lures him to a chantry
ablaze with coloured sunshafts
a babble of syllables
speak in tongues
lick at a gilded shrine
of some rich bastard
who bought salvation
with bricks and Prime

they light candles
drop coins
everything is for sale
loyalty to the highest bidder
the talk is of lost assets
banks that fail
he fears the rippling rug
for his life , his eyes
his mind, the stubby shadow
of his soul
joins the confessional queue
without hope of absolution




In Berkeley Castle
the screams were heard
for miles around, it's whispered
the people shut their ears
to the torture of another poor sod
with a poor choice of friends
and prayed for mercy
for a quick death to stop
the noise
it is not politic
to be deviant
not wise to see
(or hear or speak)

hide your face from the cameras
display your Daily Sport
your crumpled
News of the Screws
where it can be clearly seen
that you conform.




I ran back to you
before the iron grille
slammed shut
and trapped the fingers
of my spirit in the mesh
you fed me bread
and honey
and sweet green tea
wrapped me in embroidered silk.

Empty Apartment

You get into a habit
of knowing the hours
the neighbours keep.


The Lithuanians left
moved on and I
still look for lights in blank
windows
but
no slippers wait on the floor
by the french doors
for their return
the waft of cigarette smoke
from their veranda
no longer pervades our hall
full bodied bass and treble
volume
vibrates our ornaments
from the shelves no more.

In the garage
where once thumped
exercise machines
and sculptured flesh and muscle
pumped and puffed
pushed weights and grunted
to the rhythmic breaking
of pain
barriers
silence settles damply.

The lonely wind
funnels deadletters
into the gutters
parodies the ice maiden's
roller- blades' grinding whir
the backstreet yawns
devoid of foreign cars
black as a sleeping cat
eyes closed tight
without the relentless blue
of Vlad's LED alarm
flash. flash. flash. flash.

NaNoWri Mo

Well there is is.
My badge for writing 61,000 + words of a novel in November. I have set myself until the challenge ends on the 30th of this month to lick it into a draft form to actually show it to friends and family, who may or may not read it, but it will make me feel better that I did it to entertain, which is the main reason I do anything.

I am sure much of it will irritate. It is a ripping yarn, part historical friction, part suspense and drama, part a tale of everyday folk who eat sandwiches and go for a slash every so often while being required to commit themselves to having their minds messed with by a crazy homosexual minor knight type of Guy in the thirteenth century experimenting with alchemy, cosmology and scientific theory advanced even for the twentieth century and who rejects the basic beliefs of the Medieval Western World. Only they don't actually know that is happening. They are worried it might be psychosis or God. Hopefully the everyday folk will get to have sex at some point instead of the reader just being expected to assume that they do. Didn't have time to work up to any good sex scenes. Maybe later on. One can't rush such things. Not unless the characters are suffering from crosscentruy hypnosis and act, well , out of character. But then the reader has to have an idea that he /she knows how the character should act before being shocked that they are acting out of character, otherwise it doesn't really work, does it. For me writing it, the scenes have to be practical enough to act out, and have to be able to withstand questioning devised by a mind of a nine year old. You see, they know that you can't go three days without a pee, and they know that if you have a scab, you will most certainly pick it, and when people see something nasty they often respond by chucking up their lunch.

Anyway, so now I have the winners badge for achieving the 50,000 words, I shall have to do all those other things I haven't done this month, and that I used the creative challenge to procrastinate from doing. It was quite weird. I did a load of things that I would not normally do in order to ut off sittin gdown to write, but I didn't do the things that I normally would have done. That is, I cleaned the tile grout in the bathroom, but I didn't write to my cousin and I didn't make my Christmas cards and gift tags, and there is fluff like tumble weed under the bed.

Hmmm. Maybe I might just start the sequel...

Sunday Afternoon Walk.

the stone frog
on the window sill opposite
sports a frozen snow hoodie
lopsided it dribbles
a toothless hobo grimace


sycamore and chestnut
toss in the wind
clutch at the air
desperate
dead hands with parchment skin
cling to chimneys
my gloves, the colour
of autumn
float on a copper sea
of fallen beech leaves

miles of dappled lane later
stained glass sun fails to set blaze
the hills behind the turbines
on Knabb Ridge
greyscale sky scuds in from the moor
first flakes blow
too soon to settle
melt like love in a hurry

trees, a little more bare than before
crowd, suck spaces closer together
hover twixt dusk and twilight
afternoon and evening
life and death
The chill exhilarates
inspires
I slip on a dead squirrel
fur blurred as bonfire smoke
an urban fox scuttles
through swept leaves
eyes like a luminous watch.

Incident in the Street Outside

a woman struggled
four men held her down
on the pavement
'let me go, let me go'
it was a kind of mantra
not urgent or beseeching
more a statement of fact
she seemed coherent
but sad, not even desperate
or emphatic
Marcel said she had a knife
or a piece of glass
Ben had blood splashes on his apron
he held a teatowel tight
as a tourniquet around her wrist
she twisted and bit
it started to rain
the pavement glittered
ran with oily rainbows
the chiropodist led
a fat woman away
her shoulders slumped
she dragged her feet
why do people limp
when there is nothing wrong
with their legs?
the chiropodist comforted her
i needed you here to make sense
of how these people
our neighbours
strangers passers by
those who try not to stare
from cars
fitted into this scene
no one else could tell me
the ambulance came
Gerald from the bikeshop
directed traffic
it took them ages to strap
her on the trolley
she fell off twice onto the road
bare dirty feet waving
kicking obliquely
no one dared be firm or rough
still she screamed
my ears strained for clues
hissed with horror and pain
Gerald the bikeshop
declined to gossip avoided
people's eyes
later I heard it was his daughter
having a Breakdown
in public.

Why weren't you there?
You would have known
what to do
what to say.

Pond

The August Bank Holiday re-enactment weekend is always sad in a way as it is the last of the season and means that another Summer is coming to an end. Spring is always lovely at Murton, with the hedges foaming with blossom and wild flowers tucked away on the banks of the streams, not to mention the lambs and chicks, but for me, the park is at its best in late Summer, with the trees in their fullest foliage, the hawthorn berries turning red, the elderberries green still but plumping up to deep purple weighing down the slender branches like dangling earings on a Turkish belly dancer. The paths around the fort are bordered with shoulder high grass and nettles, briars spill ripening blackberries like shining jewels over onto the narrow packed earth tracks. The Celtic village is overgrown and mysterious with the ruins of the roundhouses which were burned down by vandals a few years ago. The twisted hawthorn bedecked with ribbons guards the remaining sod house, mossed green and cool as a water nymph's boudoir. Along the walkway to the apiary the apples plop prematurely on the path, and in the garden of the Tudor house, they blush red above the rioting herbs.

A few years ago a huge English oak on the path to the Celtic village was blown down in a gale. Its shattered and splintered trunk screamed, the trunk and overweight branches spread across the pond and beyond, a giant broken and dying. Over a period the leaves ceased to unfurl on borrowed sap in Spring. The branches were sawn up and used for firewood, so that now the remaining fallen trunk rests across the pond and has become a part of its organic ecostructure, the jagged base smoothed and painted by time is hollowed out and is home to various flora, fauna, insects and magnificent fungi. The nettles and willowherb, wild garlic and tall grasses had been cut back exposing the rushes and water edge plants and allowing the sunlight to play on the deep viridian waters, picking out the vaguely sinister emerald weeds below the surface that hide goodness alone knows what.

Today the sun shines passionately down as if making up for lost time. The woven hazel hurdles that warn the unwary visitor or stray sheep or goat of the pond's existence are warm and supple to the touch. The grass is vibrant with grasshoppers playing the fiddle and the creatures that busy on the banks of still water. The pond is rich cerulean in places where it reflects the sky, and a pair of dragonflies swoop and dodge and skim in an arial ballet, their wings whirring, whizzing, blurring , sharply changing direction to defy my camera lens. If I stare hard enough I can see poor mad Ophelia, flowers in her flowing hair, floating in the murky depths.

Despite the mad activity of the wildlife, the plips and ripples of the surface skimmers, skittering waterboatmen, the opportunist minnows and the wisps of thistledown, it is still and peaceful. It is peaceful enough to allow the imagination to slip beyond time and place to the pages of Thomas Hardy or Mark Twain, or to feel as if one is inside of a Romantic Movement painting or poem, formed in the dots of pointillistic impressionism.

Sitting by the pond, on a day like this, time stands still.

The Jacobite Steam Train and Dogs.

Trains of Thought.


I don’t know what made me walk that way last Thursday evening. I generally avoid groups of people hanging around on the footbridge over the railway, or groups of youths hanging around anywhere on the dog walking route. They tend to have Bill Sykes type bull terriers on one side or other of the Dangerous Dogs Law. In some areas a gun, either replica or otherwise is the must -have fashion accessory, around the area I walk through to get out into the woods and fields they favour the staffie or the pit bull as a necessary part of their well ‘ard image. Dangerous Dog Law is a joke. The owners are probably the danger , not the hapless hounds, but even so, we have been attacked by them on more than one occasion. My border collie assumes a sit and wait posture and if the dogs go for him, he tends to run. As I am always on the other end of the lead, and he runs rather faster than I do, the effect does not do much for my dignity. I hate people who insist on having their dogs off th leash and who cannot or will not keep their dogs under control. Dogs apart, I go on adrenalin code red if I see a group of people, and specifically a group of teenage males with an attitude and aspect intended to intimidate. However, it has always been my practice to walk right through the middle of them, ensuring I do not make eye contact. It usually works, taking the current dog fashion out of the equation. They part to let me through and don’t take much notice.

So, last Thursday evening when I decided to turn right and walk the bridle path at the back of the school the opposite way to which I usually take, and go over the footbridge, it was too late to change direction and avoid the crowd of about twenty people milling around on it by the time I saw them. As I approached, I saw that the crowd consisted of elderly people, children and a couple of people-who-looked-responsible. You know the type of person, you can tell them as soon as you see them; teachers, carers, some (not all ) parents, most grandparents out with the grandkids have it, that air of authority, that tilt to the face and set of the mouth. I soon realised that these people must be carers as a few of the others started to paw at me and smile and ask me questions that people who have inhibitions just do not ask strangers. In fact, people rarely say anything to other people, unless it is two dog walkers with the same sort of dog and dressed the same way, between whom the radar twitches and tests the signal with a jaunty ‘lovely evening isn’t it’ type of comment as you draw level. These people were Downs syndrome people, smiling broadly and clutching my arm, asking if the dog was friendly. (He is. Too friendly).

I smiled , to my shame, a little embarrassed, and spotting some kind of spaniel -cross -Heinz57 bounding towards us through the coarse grass, wild oats, golden rod, rose bay willow herb that grew wild and dry and scratchy in the no mans land between the path and the fence of the embankment, pulled my collie in close and rushed through , nodding and painting a stretched- mouth clenched- teeth grin on my face to them all like some puppet tweaked by a drunk with St Vitus dance, the spaniel attempting to shag my leg, my collie attempting to shag the spaniel. Bobby always prefers to make love not war.

The cycleway asphalted path that runs parallel to the railway line here forks off the streets that once were part of the landscaped gardens of the big Victorian gothic house with the crenulated tower that breathed wealth and propriety, owned by the Foxes last century and now a Rest Home for Antediluvian Buffaloes. Once on this path from here, there is no exit until about a mile beyond where I would normally have taken my circular route home , thus taking me on a longer detour, past where I need to be so I would have to double back through the town streets. I decided what the hell, I would walk along it tonight.

There were two men standing on the path. They both had cameras cocked. They looked approachable so I asked them if there was a special train coming down the track, thinking maybe it was the Royal train or something, thinking vaguely I had not seen any police ,to say there were all these people loitering around. One of the blokes replied that it was a steam train and due any minute now.

Of course, I love steam trains, spend a fair bit of my time on and around them, what with all the WW2 railway events we attend. The dog and I stopped and fixed our eyes upon the arch of the road bridge by the Buffaloes Mansion.

At the museum there is a mile or so of restored track from the Derwent Valley railway, and we ride the lovingly restored trains as part of the scenarios when we do frontier or Indian Wars and WW2 , Spanish Civil War re-enactments there. The train enthusiasts are a fantastic bunch of talented engineers, with boiler suits , smutty faces, black hands and enthusiasm that would out-shine a beatified evangelist.

In August 2003 , the 100th anniversary of the original railway opening in 1913, there was a reconstruction of that day, down to the local brass band playing (badly) and out of time with each other, CL-W loafed around with his old school tie holding up his trousers, being very foppish, PH dressed as a gamekeeper in his plus-twos and Norfolk jacket, a couple of the girls wandering about with Votes for Women placards and rosettes, others chained to railings, genteel cups of tea in fine bone china in the marquee , croquet on the lawn, farmers, ag labs, gentry all milled around, everyone all dressed for an Edwardian summers day and the scene was for all the world a replica of 100 years back. I remember, I looked across the yellow and green fields dozing under the bluest of Vale of York skies, thinking how all these people (because for me now the scene had time slipped for real, they were no longer my friends and colleagues, they were people on the edge of the world) had no idea that their peace would be completely shattered within the year. in a few months time, the golden Edwardian Summer would have turned into the mud and blood and slaughter of the trenches of the Great War and nothing would ever be the same again. Most of these young men , cheeks puffed out honking their tubas and parping their trumpets would be dead, or if they survived, armless, legless, mindless or if they avoided that, with the joy sucked out of them. I started to cry. I am starting to cry now.

I burst into tears when the engine shrieked under the bridge, pristine brass work, glossy maroon paintwork, with a roar and a hiss . It was a long train, people leaning out of the windows. Involuntarily, I waved at them. With all my heart I waved at them, tears dripping off my nose So embarrassing. That will teach me to run out of emotional memory blockers. For once in my life I had no camera with me, so I looked with my eyes and with that part of me that seems to be attached to atavistic memory; I had to look with a roaring in my ears, and wave, wave frantically at all the people waving out at me and the dog standing in the rays of the sinking sun, there on the path along the embankment. No camera shot, just emotion memory to write from.

Full of wonder, the dog and I climbed up the steep slope to the Antidiluvian Buffalo's Road Bridge and clambered over the fence and the wall onto the main road sidewalk for a quicker run home to find out about the train.

It was the Jacobite that runs from York to Scarborough on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays in July and August. I shall be there next Tuesday waiting for it bringing its passengers home after a day at the seaside.









Settle to Carlisle Railway Poem.


Sleepy Settle wakes on a market Tuesday,
Farmers’ wives from Clitheroe,
Hellifield, Long Preston,
Gisburn and Horrocksford,
Not to mention Nappa ,
Have your tickets ready please.
Travellers on the platform
Don’t forget to mind the gap,
Standback while the gypsum wagons rumble past;
Look up to Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen y Ghent
All aboard for Langcliff and the Carlisle metropolis
Don’t lean out the window when the guard’s whistle blows.

On through Taitland’s tunnel
And the Sheriff Brow viaduct
First of many striding ‘cross the rivers and vales;
Helwith Bridge, Crag Hill, Horton in Ribblesdale
Where they carry off the Yorkshire Dales in tip- up trucks.

Steam from the engine trails back from famous Batty Moss,
A pall on the graves of the navvies who died
From gunpowder accidents, hard work and smallpox
Burrowing Bleamoor tunnel like an army of moles.
Arten Gill is where the firemen take a breather
Before they stoke the boilers for the highest of climbs

They’re knitting in Dent, they’re knitting in Dent,
Their needles are flying , those mad knitters of Dent.

In Garsdale the waterfalls tumble down the hillside,
form speleologists’ cathedrals far underground;
Dandry Mires marshes were hard to negotiate,
The engineers spanned it with granite cut from Pen y Ghent.


Over Lunds and Grisedale, Moorcock, Birkett , Shotlock,
Tunnels and bridges built by force of will;
Time for a thermos to drink to nature’s ruggedness,
Watch sparrowhawks swoop over Mallerstang Moor.

Mallerstang Moor, Mallerstang Moor,
Mallerstang, Mallerstang, Mallerstang Moor

Stop at Kirkby Stephen
Pick up passengers for Appleby,
Decked out in their finery for the annual fair;
Horses and gypsies, gypsies and horses;
‘Retain your loyalty
preserve your rights’
Appleby ,Appleby, pride of the dales.

Ribbons twist round Langwathby's maypole,
Time for a cuppa at the Brief Encounter café,
Count the stone dancers in Long Meg’s circle,
Past Little Salkeld to Lazonby Halt.
See the pele tower that guards the River Eden;
Stained glass windows in the church
By Edward Burne-Jones.
Last stop
Tired little Armathwaite
then chug into Carlisle
with a triumphant toot.

(by DeBracey)

For the Love of Steam Trains


Freight wagons shake bottle green buffet windows
globe electroliers swing umbrellas of ochre light
over vaguely antagonistic travellers
reading ripping yarns in waiting rooms.

Manic sweating fire-dwarves stoke
rake and shovel locomotive coal
smoke blinds our eyes
our ears ring with the clank of iron wheels
and the shrill whistle that rends the night
like a knife shredding silk.

The guard's arms flash his flags
in scissor-action semaphore
Betjeman crams his Great Western Railway
Company egg-and-cress sandwich
into his cut glass vowels
and we board the 19.42 for Wantage.


Library photo of The Jacobite Steam Train

Slideshow by me- photos of Bolton Abbey- Embsay Railway 1940s events

Poems by me.