Windows are single eyed.
We move the back projection,
Make clear the eyes corners.
What lies ahead, what lies in wait?
Enter house with hollow eyes breathe
Fragrant as bad breath, a dead leaf
Delicate structure crinkly soft
Wet pealing wallpaper
Doors were mouths,
Mothers polished,
Lovers humped over,
By which decisions entered or left,
From which dead leaves were brushed aside
Where the linnet calls
It breaks big white back
Of winter; craggs out
Grey veins dry stone walls
Of territory.
Cock Ring Ouzel calls
Cock Lapwings tumble
Short Eared Owls hunt
Wasteland: incomers.
Birds come upstream bones
Moved by these false springs.
Then the Curlew calls.
Spring staggers from brok
en white shells, tubers
Unsteady or sharp
Suck out hill’s feathered
Underside.
There the Golden Plover
Takes fledglings across
Warming ice: snow broth
Whispers down to crack
The river’s quiet
Hibernating voice.
Copyright Paul Brookes, i.e. Me. Published in broadsheet 1993
This could be Ian McMillan, only it’s not, its me
This could be me sat here writing words, only its not
This could be a picture of me sat here with words
Only
Only
Its not a picture, its words
I walked from Hangman Stone
Where crime swung on a gibbet
Outside villages as post it note
Stone church entrance embedded
In three red hearts three white skulls
Memory jogger
Here stone, wood, metal Christs open
Their wounds in three streets.
I walked towards Thurnscoe, a cock stride away, faced a grassy slagheap
Walked dusty ground broken glass, patchwork carpet oddment lining fields, two unhelmeted Scramblers/ riders screamed past
Two young boys help tractored farmer gather golden corn harvest
Laugh together in field edged
By housing estates
I walked down Chapel Lane
That no longer leads to a Chapel
Hard business thinking
him hauling his bike up road
packed coalsack slung
across handlebars
See effort each step up
coal weight wobbles
him to say it shall not
‘Police Did This!’
sprayed board on a Fords’ broken
windscreen
1. Govt Scheme Horticultural Handyman, first F/T job,rarified palms bruise concrete flags, posh git labourer, grey plastic bin deer head
2. Mining Security Guard: Already dealt. See WP site. 1st 12hr night shift. Stomach upturned. Zombied. Massive moon Coal dust Fitters market
3. Post Office. Temp. Associate. Lob letter/parcel correct labelled bag, pigeon hole. All taking fag break toilets. Refused cross picket.
4. Employment Assistant/Officer. Unemployment Benefit clear plastic screen with trough divide jobless aim plastic pens via trough. Filing
5. Café Assistant. Tea/Coffee stainless steel handle tripped too far. Scalded. Crap arms too short cleaning clear glass food display. 1 week
6. . P/T Creative Writing/Literature Tutor designed/taught. Reverie. Some wanted/needed to write/read. Wordworld for all. Some succeed move on. Reverie
7. Pet Stall Assistant semi open market, Ferret Woman’s ferret Anorak collar, pig’s ears, dog chew sticks/shoes, biscuits, White Rat girl
8.Recruitment Agency Admin. Industrial Estate dust paths, checking pay, filing, Belly Buster Sarnies, gritty teeth, sweltering office
9.Bottle Factory Transport Admin. Ex Squaddie boss, Tachograph check, massive warehouses bottle packed, Swipe computer linked pallets
10. Catalogue Contact Centre Advisor: 3 bus there, 3 back. Learnt phone technique, dealing with difficult customers. Golf course chill walk
11. Customer Experience Advisor: Awkward gas meters, serial rail enquiries, seasonal water problems,
broadband difficulties, white warehouse
1. Burning Brashing
Sat back breathing bark
Small insects crawl
Down tree stretched above
inhabit hair
Worn gloves
Bruised brashing branches firewood
Breathe wet peat,
Damp soil, leaf decay,
Autumn dead leaf dance,
Spring bluebell wend
Summer sacred stainglass canopy sunshaft flame play
Winter heavesnow clear paths
Sat back breathing bark
canopy leaf horizon
floats shimmers
Calm
Calm
2. Woodland Boxed
Lift small boxes wooden lid smell
Broadleaved woodland
Before Rail/Road
Press plastic button hear
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Woodpeckers,
Before Rail/Road
Reach inside through rubber feel
rough bark, peaty soil, leaf texture
Before Rail/Road
Press plastic button watch
Videowalk ancient Beech, Oak, Birch
Before Rail/Road
Electronic Ringtone.
We would like to advise all visitors
The museum is closing soon.
Please exit through main door.
We hope you have enjoyed your visit.
Thankyou for visiting. Please come again.
A quiet place
where swans come to rest
And horses graze
Villages sit
above flood waters
A prairie scene from a Western
But it is too green
disused railway
disused canal
parallel well used road edge
the quiet place
Men shirts off play cards
In caravan park
Where women check
Washings dryness
Karts distant revs
Climb green hill
Between green blades
Ground is slag
Horizons triangulation points up close
Plaqued monuments
To abandoned mine shafts
Nearby empty new industrial units
A woman holds a breadbag
for the horses to nuzzle
‘I enjoy feeding the horses
But they’re not mine.
I don’t know whose they are.’
A swan
A swan
Hels awake ••••
Drifting and voices.
“Greetings my dear friend ever yours faithfully”. He cannot remember
his name. The song comes. Derivation. Himself. Others. Pass by. Pressure. Depth. Density. Ashes. Corpses. Thoughts to be rearranged. Every desert stops somewhere. Hell. Never recognising himself In the mirror. Shadows. Wrinkles. The master who said “Hels only begun •••
a juvenile”. Puffs and sucks and rests his hand. “Few years experience. His Ideas’ II lave dampened.” Enzymes. Saliva In his mouth. Drying up.>. The chamber of digestion. Meat of animals, their milk and the forms
of plants wi I I not last. Feeding under pressure. Old system. Giving out pain when It does not agree. No room for argument. Nature. Thinking. “I derive” said the apprentice.
He’s intent and young •••
The easiest derivation. Himself. Language is too soft. He worries about his heart too often. He eats everybody. Everybody loves him.
The excess of youth. Shall they dance in the bed. He’ll have your swivel, If you take his screw. There Is more to this lIfe. Death ought to know. Perhaps, you’re a boy. Perhaps youlre a girl. Take him Into your gutter. He’ll be your rat, cat or anybody you feel like roiling
up in your cigarette dear.
The song goes.
The waitress laid his cup of coffee on the laminated surface. Slipping from daydream to reality was not easy for him. Whl+e noise gradually would become the rush of traffic and chatter of old men and old women.
“So and so went Into hospital today. So and so passed his exams. So and so Is finally gettIng married ••• “
All these people Involved In the Great Necessity. He wished to Just sit and listen and listen. He could not. Boredom would edge Its way In speaking of death and Inactivity. Daydreaming was for children.
Those without responsibility. Without a mother, grandparents, girlfriend and children.
22
His mother was In “The Groves”. The visit would take place when his wife returned from Marks and Spencers. She had to return some clothes that were too big. The honeymoon had been spoiled. He tapped his cigarette. Watched the ash roll and settle.
Romance Is the story of an elsewhere; a challenging escape. Not from reality but to a rearrangement of It. He loved rearranging reality, rearranging the ashes with his cigarette. ThinkIng of the perfec~ way to kill. The perfect way to love. The perfect way to live. Mere
conjecture. He stabbed his cIgarette Into the tr’av.
His wife surprised him. Tired. Wrinkles. He could not discern her. His mouth was dry. His wife was the woman who had decided to cope with his problem.
“Michael. I got them changed”.
“Oh good. Are we going then?”
He got up quickly. Took the bag she held. Strode purposefully out. Not waiting tor her.
Trees. Bushes. Gravel drive. Middle of a council estate. Secluded. Pass between two high hedges. Brushing the car. All green. Then the house. Assertive. Confident. Solid. Red brick and ashlar. Palatial. Columned. Resting place. A cat dashed. Leaving cream steps. Old house. Old people.
They were Inarticulate and III-informed. It was a new experience. What was to be obtained from It?
His mother was a child. A quiet child. She had come through her adolescent excess. Cutting squares out of new curtains with scissors. Speaking to nobody In the house. Wrapping newly bought food In paper
and placing It In a neighbour’s bin. Never acknowledging the work others did for her. Stuffing paper Into plug-holes and runnIng the taps. Flooding the house. They decided she would be better cared for In 8 home.
23
III:
pressure of responsibi lity. people. Alone. The Desert. other people.
“Are vou we II ? moTher”, he asked.
“Has Michael come veT?” she looked aT him.
“I’m Michael moTher!” he Took her hands to. his.
“You are. 0 Ves, hello Michael!” she felt for his face. “Hello mo+her , moTher!”
“Yes Michael, It Is Michael isn’T It?”
“This Is Julie, mo+her ,”
“Hello Julie. Is she your new girlfriend, Michael?”
“No mother, she’S my wife. Bemember the wedding mother? Uncle Albert
was there. He talked to you. Remember”.
“Uncle Alfred. Your wife. You learn something new everyday. Don’t
you Michael?”
“Yes mother”.
“I’ve been sick again Michael, last night ••• nurse cleaned it up. Can’t keep my food down like I used to Michael”.
She would be a corpse soon.
Pass between two high hedges. Remembering his mother, like daydreaming. Without the responsibility of the present. How she packed him off to _~ch’:Jc’. How much fun she was. Play I ng pooh-is+ I cks from the V!oc~:r.,(lden bridge. Down the path ful I of sunshine summer and green. Mere
conjecture.
“Out of it. Michael, face up to It”. His wife drove with precision, accuracy and confidence. “We’ I I visit her next week”.
Michael sometimes wondered whether the marriage had been a good Idea. Julie sometimes wondered about life married to a Daydreamer. Each could sense the hell in the others. Th.at limit to their Independence -, Always the other person to consider. The depths. The density. The The Great Necessity of coping with other
Where the desert stopped. The hell of
Drifting and voices. The song comes. People eating each other. The need to know. A fork. The need to keep secrets. A knife. Corr~spondence. A table. The children. Those who had to Ieern to cope with responsibility. On a separate smaller Table. Michael was among them. The apprentices. Trying TO remember names of people, of places.
Trying TO be responsible.
24
Otherwise. A wack across the ear. The steel spatula. The wooden spoon across cold bare le9s• Other people had to be able to Rccept you. If they did nOT. The system gave OUT pain. No room for argument. Michael derived pain from other people. It was easy to see the source of his life. Himself. Imagination. The song goes.
Julie drove up the drive. Stopped. Unlatched the door. Jangling keys.
Ashen faces stared out from The cafe with its laminated tables.
“Had a good day?” said a man dressed in white.
”’Fair to middling,” he said. ‘iHis mother was “alright.”
“That’s good. Now come on Michael”, the man said as he opened the
. door.
“My wife?”
“Now M I chae I • No more daydream I ng” • “Coming next week for him are we Julie”.
“Of course” she said. Closing the car-door. Putting the keys In the ignition. Leaving Michael with the man In white staring after her. The car dipped from the drive.
“That letter arrived, Michael. From Uncle Albert”.
The man In white led him into the building. Michael was stil I awake and intent.
A knock at our front door. A Doctor has brought Grandad home. Grandad has gone into a Doctors believing he has an appointment.
Grandad goes for a paper, for the footie pages. As he does everyday, dressed immaculately, jacket, waistcoat, tie, black shoes shining.
Nana and he arrive a couple of days ago to help Dad again in caring for Mam, who is fighting Breast Cancer. Always a quiet man. Keeps himself to himself. Even when I am a child and we go to see the latest James Bond he says very little. He talks footie but I am not into that. He does Littlewoods Pools and Spot the Ball.
He comes in from sorting at the Post Office, walks through the lounge door, bangs the door with one hand as his other hand grabs his nose and laughs. He is good, we laugh too.
Grandad is very late. Grandad left three hours ago. Nana wants to call local hospitals fearing he has been knocked down. Dad drives around the village, pops into the newsagents. Grandad has not bought his paper.
My grandad suffers illnesses. Among my late Nanas belongings I discover a note he has written.
Ellesmere Port. Pneumonia May 1942 Dec 1942
When I had been in the army a year my health began to deteriate I had Pneumonia twice in six months The last time I almost lost my life They sent for my wife and sat with me alnight When I was twenty two I had mumps in hospital again I was never rid of styes in my eyes having to go in hospital again as Both my eyes closed. Had pains in my Back although I didn’t go in hospital I was put on light duties for a fortnight When I was on leave I saw my own doctor who gave me injection in my Back I have a disabled Badge in my car and am under hospital care as an outpatient for my stomach another specialist for my chest.
The note appears to have been written sometime later, perhaps as evidence for a new doctor.
In a 1993 poetry anthology ‘Rats For Love:The Book’ my poem ‘Bait’ describes the banter between Nana and Grandad. It describes how she felt about his forgetfulness before he was diagnosed:
Married forty years to the same man. Ate with her mouth open. Talked with her mouth full. Masticated his forgetfulness through two romantic lovers between the pages. Cut with some bloodless cold steel then tongued from cheek to cheek morsels of his past with her: Who lost his false teeth … … Ieft his pipe on the bin lid outside … kept new clothes unwrapped for years … did not like driving in the dark … ? She levered chewed events from good teeth, pushed them down to the acid below through shredding walls to feed blood and bile that formed into words goading him to grab the bait. And when he did she hauled him in to be filleted, iced and sold to others as good quality food to be eaten.
The title is a play on words that is not made obvious in the poem. My Nana is born in Sunderland and the North East dialect word for food is ‘bait.’
Especially after Mam dies of Cancer, Grandad gradually forgets how to care for himself. Nana looks after him until it gets too much for her too.
Nana buys packs of incontinence pants as Grandad loses control of his bowels. She puts new ones on, bins the old. Grandad does not help, as on one of many occasions he gets into bed, soils himself, takes off the pants while in bed, and throws them on the bedroom floor soiled side down.
A large man Nana has to bath him, then try to get him out of the bath when he will not move.
He has spells in local care homes, gradually stays longer and longer. A respite for Nana.
Nana ensures he has what she calls ‘decent’ clothes in his suitcase, each piece of clothing painstakingly labelled with his name. When he returns home she is forever phoning the homes about someone elses clothes in the returned suitcase. On one occasion, Grandad walks five miles from Care home to Nana’s.
Last time I see Grandad my wife and I treat both him and Nana to a Sunday pub lunch at Knox Arms. A stone built pub about two miles from Nanas.
Nana dresses Grandad immaculately, razor sharp trouser creases, spotless shirt, waistcoat, matching tie Throughout, our visit Grandad never speaks. We order a Taxi to the pub. At the Knox, Nana tucks a paper napkin into Grandad’s shirt, and when it arrives cuts his roast dinner up for him. Nana talks throughout about daily problems with Grandads incontinence pads and staff in the homes, the uselessness of Social Services. On the walk home I notice Grandads waistcoat and shirt gravy stained and ribbons of carrot cling to the underside of his lip.
I search his eyes for recognition of who I am, from the time I say hello to the time I say goodbye to him sat in his favourite chair at Nanas. My Grandad has disappeared..
