Shadows in the City

It is mid-afternoon. The shadows are long and the buildings prove it passively. There is no-one about on the boulevard and the birds are singing of their happiness at being left alone. No afternoons are ever like this any more; all times of day seem to have the same level of activity, traffic etc. My dad still has a book which I read many times when I was little. It was a collection of cartoons by Osbert Lancaster, mostly of his comic family headed by Lady Maudie Littlehampton, which were originally published in the Daily Express. There were some other "stand-alone" cartoons as well which were probably more subtle digs at the more ludicrous side of 50s and 60s living than the Jack-Hammer humour of the Cartoons by Carl Giles. In the middle of the books were some wonderful pictures of afternoons around the world and they have always stuck with me as quite relaxing. For example, the Manhattan afternoon had a street of typical skyscapers interspersed with older, shorter buildings. The Shadows were all long and there were no people about at all. In contrast, the English afternoon depicted a rainy but genteel Sea-side promenade. I seem to remember there being poems connected to each picture and the English one mentioned some scandal about a minor Royal and the suicide of a lady's maid underneath the pier. The afternoons I remember from the school vacations when I was under ten, seem to bear out this lack of activity. I must of course be recalling all the Summer holidays because it was always sunny. We would listen to the comedy show on Radio 4 which was always broadcast around lunchtime (They still do at weekends). This was usually The Men From the Ministry which I seem to think was based on the Ministry guys who tried to keep St Trinian's school in check. After lunch we would trail around the neighbourhood which involved a lot of exploring of stream beds and ponds and railways. It is a wonder that none of us were injured. There is a picture my dad took of my brother, a friend of ours and me somewhere on the Malvern Hills on just such an exploring day. We look very serious but that is of course normal for children having their picture taken while pretending to be soldiers or explorers. This is beginning to sound very "Swallows and Amazons".

I used to walk around this city on Sunday Afternoons, just looking at the buildings and taking photographs. It felt empty towards the end, I am not sure why. Maybe I was just lonely and all the pretending was missing. That is probably why I started writing poetry. You can make up your own world and that is what a lot of my poetry is, just stories. Having said that, I do put in a lot about myself or what I wish to be. This is the latest one. I have been working on it for ages though only actually a few minutes of "contact" with it.

March 2002

In the Flax Fields

I could break this memory, this child of glass
that I have held forever in this field.
There is no Queen of England loved her country more
than this bright thing, this watermark, this language
flowing from the atmosphere to dusty earth.
At this age, I know nothing of the musics
which later make me cry.

The waltz-time of self-reference
betrays nothing but the hiding-place of lovers.
In the breezy day they see no-one else,
just eyes and faces, close and full of nothing
but their early love and bright detachment.

A walk through blank and empty air
is all that we require to fix ourselves.
The high ideas of lives we see through windows.

It is unfinished and I think the title needs changing as it is pinched from a very early poem about the girls across the road from me. Actually this has choked me up a little for reasons I don't feel able to put down here. Yesterday when I looked at this poem, it seemed forced and empty but now with all the associations of the other poem it has turned into something quite powerful, for me at least. I need to find my last complete poetry notebook and drag some of those fragments out. I used to have a lot of time on my hands for this sort of thing. Now all I manage is the Blog and that it because I get to spend lunchtimes at it. I started writing serious poetry after reading The Wasteland which I thought was brilliant without actually understanding any of it. I liked The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock more and then I got into Sylvia Plath. I am afriad that's all the heroes we have time for this week.

Go here for a Nice Picture.