The River Stairs

This one's a bit different from my usual stuff. A lot more consciously Gothic than I'd normally aim for, but it came from a dream/nightmare I had, which was just too vivid not to turn into a poem. I don't tend to use dreams for inspiration very often at all, but maybe it's something I should consider more.

As well as the dream I took some ideas and imagery from the Canadian folk tale of La Chasse-galerie and Malicorne's chilling song La Chasse Gallery about the old French legend which in turn inspired that; also Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, about the sinking of a Great Lakes bulker in 1975; a line from Act IV, Scene III of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; and finally a passage from Chapter 4 of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men On The Bummel about the mystery of the body clock, which is where I got the title.

THE RIVER STAIRS

Edmund thought he knew his place
He tripped through the darkness
Of a house as black as pitch
Through a hatchway to the river stairs.

A song, a shout on nocturnal airs?                            
He tiptoed on the greasy boards
Of his stage that status built
To investigate the narrow bank.

In misty shadows, swift and dank
He felt the river's fingers fly out
Of a flow wherein some ghostly watchman waited

'La Chasse-Galerie'

To take his tide of fortune at the flood.
                                                                         
A quickening then of the blood?
He heard his heartbeat as a drum
Of fear and loss of power
To turn aside the mighty course.

Faster than a galloping horse
He froze at the approach
Of a ship of souls without a captain
To turn the helm away.

Why never seen by day?
He knew the lines, the treacherous boards
Of his stage and his chosen part
To play no more.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald

Sweeping the drowning shore
He glimpsed the deadly wake
Of Gallery's galleon begin
To overwhelm his hope.

For him no further line nor rope?
He saw his dark house crumble out
Of time, of place, of reality
To rise again elsewhere.

From the muddy river stairs
He vanished from the sight and sound
Of future's dawn
To leave never a trace.

Does tragic Edmund voyage nightly in the race?
The waves will never give up their dead
Something still waits, and so beware
For along the bank, the river stares.


Thanks to: Jerome K. Jerome for Three Men On The Bummel, Gordon Lightfoot for The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, William Shakespeare for Julius Caesar, and Malicorne for La Chasse Gallery.

Working for You

During my Masters I had to take on a supermarket nightshift job for financial reasons. Fair enough, except that at the time of writing this post, I'm still there over three years down the line. That was where the title of this poem came from: questioning what my efforts were ultimately going towards. Happiness with a future companion? Time will tell.

The verse itself has a fairly straightforward premise: trying to move on with life while wrestling with memories. And meanwhile, settling gradually further and further into the place you've ended up in – for comfort's sake, probably. Seeking solace in drinks with friends, and music...perhaps that last bit is the reason for the unusually large number of songs I drew inspiration from here! Including one from Men At Work's Cargo album, deserving of special mention as the soundtrack to my Masters year.

The top photo here is of 'the orient of Oldfield', a fanciful reference to the easternmost point of Bath's Oldfield ward. (I've always been into the intricacies of administrative geography, but they don't often crop up in my poems.)

WORKING FOR YOU

Twisting my heel on the orient of Oldfield

To mark a new week

And the frost and the fog don't matter

I have bigger steps to take.

I'm here in the city
Where the songs all speak my name
Fears dispelled in melody
An easy drug to fake.

Heading home is all the outcome
I can find in days of doubt
Dependable roads can lead me there
Longing for a new or old path.

I can't begin what will not start
And so I try a promised potion
Mix it up in modern measures
The drink is dry and does not last.

Names and names and faces
Dance and spin in bubbles
To catch one I'd be happy
Except there's one I know.

It floats within me now and still
My heart defends itself
If it gets into my bloodstream
Then the hurt will surely show.

Forceful, endless longing
Exhaustion and regret
These are the wages of waiting
And loving yesterday.

But I will keep on working
Working for you
Whenever you are
Whoever you are

Still to come, or flown away.

Thanks to: Roger Taylor for I Cry For You (Love, Hope And Confusion), Dire Straits for Southbound Again, America for Only Game In Town, David Bowie for As The World Falls Down, Men At Work for No Sign Of Yesterday, and The Killers for Shot At The Night.

Bharat

By now I had started my Translation Masters, still at Bath. This was a slight return to themes of mine from a year or two earlier...fleeting obsessions, indecisiveness, and ultimate lack of any tangible outcome. All couched in dreamlike imagery, and all a bit vague perhaps; I think I was conscious of that when writing it.

And I'll leave the title as a mystery for myself. The reason for it is a past footnote that's no longer relevant.

BHARAT

A sea of chairs
Empty but for echoes
And now and then it's unawares
I'm caught among them.

Escape from doubt is welcome
The walls themselves take on a meaning
Frames for paintings hanging so seldom
Windows on other lives.

To look across and see you there
Something seems to open
With the movement of the air
And suddenly shuts itself away.

Peaceful but persistent aches
Oddly contented amidst the flow
Can they be all it takes
To keep a questioner happy?

These moments drag
And fly in equal measure
Disrupted metres of time lag
Tangled and tripping the best of us.

Weeks, days, and hours pass
Relentless countdown to a reckless action
Or the tragicomic farce
Of wordless longing.

My days are masked, my nights beset
With spectres of inspiration
Some are glimpsed and others met
To be swept away by circumstance.

Your many incarnations
Seem equally beautiful
But wealth of imagination
Hides poverty of courage.

So it's love in a fragrant mist
On the wide sea where faces now appear
As reality's fist
Shocks me to life again.

But still I'll demand to sit
And stare
And wait
And fade.

Thanks to: Laura Marling for Ghosts, Men At Work for Overkill, and KT Tunstall for Silent Sea.

Fran's Windmill, or Flowering or Flouring?

My one and only piece from my fourth year of uni...and a bizarre title, deserving of explanation! A uni friend of mine once told me about an ancestral windmill her family had owned somewhere in Silesia. Meanwhile, another friend and I had grown accustomed to studying a certain kind of academic unit with vague, philosophical titles, sometimes featuring weak wordplay and usually concerned with the nature of cultural memory and identity. We used to poke good-natured fun at these titles, making up our own occasionally.

As our undergrad days started to draw to a close, I thought it would be amusing to write a poem for my friends, tying in the memory of the windmill to a self-consciously waffling narrative about friendship. But the tongue-in-cheek origins of the piece kind of backfired on me, because what eventually resulted actually sounded pretty good. It ended up providing a gentle, bittersweet tone to those last few weeks, before we went our separate ways. The title's really the only vestige of a joke left in it, I think!

I notice I used Sting's Fortress Around Your Heart once again here...and it wouldn't be the last time either. :P

FRAN'S WINDMILL, or FLOWERING OR FLOURING?

'In European allegory, to tilt at a windmill [...] is a sure sign of madness.'                                     (Sandra Forty, Symbols)

Still the pool in silence sits

Halfway across the field

Tranquillity unsealed

Thinly as the water slips.

And slowly as the seasons yield

To many a harvest dance

Captured in a second glance

There a grey image floats revealed.

Caught as in a mire of trance

It bears aloft its sails

Wavering, never fails

What led you here was no chance.

Within your mother's many tales

The message you did not heed

The image your fair eyes need

Now to face amidst the dark bales.

Arising from the pale weed

Your apprehensive gaze

Falls back on bygone days

With a dream becoming deed.

The yearly winds have sudden ways

To return you to the morn

Of memories once born

Where the breeze around the mind plays.

And realisation's dawn

Approaches, soon to break

Across the pearly lake

On companionship's bright lawn.

Decisions you are still to make

Fall back before the new past

Their armistice will not last

A fleeting step you now must take.

Nail no colours to the mast

Pause, reflect, though you swear

The time in which you care

Will ever be fading fast.

Symbolic in your passing stare

The structure stands forever

Time's wind and human weather

Majestic it withstands them there.

Defending that which never

Should be allowed to fade

Friendship's time-bound parade

Turning our dreams together.

Before you turn to leave, remember

That the pool in silence sits still

The field, memory's fortress

Think of good times never less

When at last you find the windmill.

Dedicated to final-year friends!

Thanks to: Sting for Fortress Around Your Heart and Tears For Fears for Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down).

Reflections for Котейка

This one, the last from the year abroad, was born out of distress at having to say goodbye to someone, as I stayed in Strasbourg for another six weeks after they went home. Our story would in fact continue for another two years, but the end of this phase was pretty painful, and for all I knew it was already the end. What I had left was the city, which, though beautiful, could no longer fully compensate.

REFLECTIONS FOR КОТЕЙКА

We're stirring in our sleep

The dream will soon be ended

By the curse of circumstances

We're waiting to awaken

To the grey of the aftermath's deep.

Every corner, every street

Seems a landmark lit by love

A pane in a stained-glass window

With a glimpse of another future

A reminder of your heartbeat.

We're echoing the dawn's chime

When the best thing to have happened

Will inevitably vanish

From the world of our today

But linger in our minds.

Every place you took me

In travel or in romance

Was new to my experience

The memory's eternal

That you gave to set me free.

We've shared the same few months past

The frosts and thaws are over

And the sun has come to shine

It was not always certain

But now we're singing to the last.

Every time I faltered

With an error in my planning

I would hesitate to follow

But I would not turn away

Though the season can't be altered.

We watch the calendar roll

It won't bring back that winter

When all was just beginning

And we didn't have to battle

With the summer and its toll.

Every day spent with you

Has changed me for the better

I have to let you realise

It has to be said clearly

Though the verses do not want to.

We've forged a living legend

From memories and passion

From journeys and adventure

And quieter acts of kindness

That will last beyond the end.

Every year before me ran

When I'm sure I will recall it

The too few months spent with you

The days in which it ended

And the joy as it began.

When our time has turned away

The dream's warm heart will live on

From a kiss that spanned a frontier

A meeting at a crossing

And the wealth of words to say.

My reflections almost done

I turn back from the window

To walk this empty city

My spirit aches without you

And I always will remember

That I loved you, little one.

Thanks to: Queen for Who Wants To Live Forever and White Queen (As It Began), Men Without Hats for I Sing Last (Not For Tears), and Sting for Ghost Story.

   

Thunder's Chase

This is another heavily metaphorical one, inspired by being caught in a thunderstorm and sheltering in Strasbourg cathedral in the spring of my year abroad. From that admittedly quite fun experience I derived an idea of racing against the relentless pace of life's twists and turns, sometimes in fear, sometimes in exhilaration, but always with an enforced sense of urgency. I tried to make this one more fast-paced than my usual fare, accordingly.

THUNDER'S CHASE

Run.

Dream of the thunder's chase.

Run into a forest of time

Where every tree is someone else's dream

Time to dive and experience

Don't climb

The storm is coming

And danger rides the wind on high.

With a pounding acceleration

The forest is made to vanish

Welcome to the urban market of fate

Look back

And regret that you didn't buy or sell

The weather's not waiting for you.

Flashes of fire and water fly

No time for thought or word

To shelter you must turn

Get away

To save the day for yourself

By finding the rose spire of strength.

Safe and dry without a sound

Beyond the crash of heaven's battle

No further need to choose your camp

Wake up

And realise what it was

A race in someone else's dream...

Taste the rain on the stone

Washing away the fear

Laughing across the cobbled square

But beware

The dream's not dead

This race is real

And coming to catch you.

Run.

Thanks to: Queen for Ride The Wild Wind and Tears For Fears for Mothers Talk.

Histoire et mémoire en Europe

This one was written on the last night of a trip to Burgundy with my parents during my year abroad, and takes its title from one of the units I was studying at Sciences Po. The main theme is the weight of history, changing perceptions as decades and centuries pass, and the continuity of humanity through the ages. I recall it came out a lot more abstract than I'd originally intended, but looking back, the turn of 2012 seems to have been something of a watershed for my work. From here on in, things generally get noticeably more complex. Never really noticed before I revisited these for the blog!

The main inspiration for the poem came from the Parc Noisot above the village of Fixin south of Dijon, which we visited briefly. Claude Noisot (1787-1861) – a former bodyguard to Napoleon Bonaparte – is buried there, in the midst of a landscaped park unabashedly dedicated to the Emperor's glory. France's complex relationship with that particular legacy set me musing on 'history and memory', and bingo: the unit title was a perfect fit. I do hope it's not copyright. ;)

HISTOIRE ET MÉMOIRE EN EUROPE

Looking down at the plain

Shape of the land from a forested hillside

The scene was set

For another little glimpse

Another little flash

(Call it inspiration

Call it what you feel).

I said "you're history

And I can be memory"

Back again for another look

At the silent signs

And frozen faces

Of twisting places

And prior times.

So questioning the fact of where we were

And are

And what we were meant to think of each other

I stared into the face

Of a man I'd never met

Awakening in mineral form while down below

His body slept.

Halfway to death or maybe

Seems to me that's how it is

For anyone at any given moment

No exception made for

The eternal emperor

Or the timeless tyrant

We can't even agree on him any more.

To lose the reckless romance

And search for some consistency

Is a challenge so beyond

And out of sight

That we can't hope to accept it

Try as we might

Therein lies pure vertigo.

What of the forgotten men

Watching over the more glorious dead?

This one's guarding still

What's his rhythm, did he clock

That someone new had stepped over his path?

Or more likely, is he past

All care for his lands of pride?

Over his shoulder on the hill and on the plain

And for miles in all directions

In space and time the many millions

Had prepared new lives

Wings for their children though their own fell to pieces

But how far did they fly

And how far have we followed?

Are we lost in posterity

Or are we forgetful

Or free

To try and grasp

The memory of the meaning

Of that thing we call

Eternity?

Questions without answers?

Too true

But on reflection a lot of the time

That's history for you

Get some compassion and memory

Remember the past's humanity

And we should get through.

Can't stay too long

In a forest of wandering and wondering like this

Confusion is all too common

For all of us, forever

It can only be a glimpse

A flash

Of inspiration, or whatever.

Thanks to: Jefferson Starship for Ai Garimasu (There Is Love), Malicorne for Quand Le Cyprès, Seth Lakeman for Stepping Over You, and Men Without Hats for Rhythm Of Youth.