Bridge Over the Aire

Poetry

BOOK ONE

AGAINST THE GRAIN

“Oxford be silent, I this truth must write

Leeds hath for rarities undone thee quite.”

- William Dawson of Hackney, Nov.7th 1704

“The repressed becomes the poem”

Louise Bogan

Well it’s Friday the thirteenth

So I’d better begin with luck

As I prepare for a journey to

The north, the place where I began

And I was lucky even before I

Was born for the red-hot shrapnel fell

And missed my mother by an inch

As she walked through the Blitz

In Bradford in nineteen forty-one.

Sydney Graham this poem is for you,

Although we never met, your feet

Have walked on the waters of poetic faith,

Hold out a hand for me to grasp,

A net to catch the dancing reflections

Of the midnight stars and smooth

The green tongue of the seawave

When it speaks to me as I slide

From my mother’s turning side.

For years I lived in the gardens

Of fire and flames robed time in

Memory and desire, icicles climbed

Six inches up the kitchen window

Then six inches down and six feet

Of snow lay against the POW’s as they

Marched with hefted shovels from

Knostrop’s cottage camp with curling

Smoke signalling from crooked stacks.

Yards from where I lay Hendry and

Moore sat in their attic conceiving

The Apocalypse and my natal stars

Were their ineffable words.

Shut off the telephone, I hear

Another bell, it is Saint Hilda’s

Tinny tone, one note repeated, tolling

Birth and death and all that lies

Between, insistent, punitive, breaking

The Sabbath’s silence and the bell

Rope like a hangman’s noose, hymnals

Like tawses, incense like choking fog

The procession to the altar a parade

Of the dead and God was over the road

In the pink and blue threaded lupins

Massed behind the rusted padlock of

The gate to the unused path by the

Bridge over the railway.

I began this prayer of poetry in poverty

And this never-ending song started in silence

After the bells quietened and Sunday was in

Church or still in bed as I watched the tusky

Growing in the fecund darkness. The shed was

Holy, warm and in wonder I felt it move and

On my scooter I flew over the holy stones of

Jerusalem the Golden.

My wide eyes wandered over the Aire at the

Coal barges as they snaked beneath the bridge

In black tarpaulin shrouds and clouds of steam

Hissed from Easy Road Laundry, the breaths of a

Monster, half man, half machine, the terrifying

Figures in a dream and on the Empire’s stage

I saw Doctor Wonder’s Mechanical Robot raise

An axe and chop in half his master and the two

Halves haunted me always, their fusion and

Diffusion some terrible portent to meet me

In darkness and in dreams.

Luck, where did I leave you?

By the paddling pool in Eastend Park,

In the seawave as I explored the green

Springs of my birth, in the bare hedges

Of Knostrop where I began this present

Pilgrimage by Joyce Summersgill’s side

As she ran from the shouting man and in

Disarray began this never-ending flight

And still at fifty-four I run, I know not

Why or where and death cannot be far

From this half-open door.

For luck I count each cobble, there’s enough

Beneath the ginnel to take a breath

And that’s the luck I need to live on.

In the dark I saw a spark light up and

Whirl and twirl around my head and as it hissed

I drew in silver a lucky seven.

Spender, Stephen, Sir,

Whichever name you

Now prefer, it is

Irrelevant, you’re

Dead and but a one

Or two poem man I

Fear. High and clear

I hear your voice

Caressing Rilke’s

Elegies, relating

Them to liberty,

Of which you had so

Little, shackled as you were

To your poetic chair.

In Leeds I listened

To your praise

Of famous men,

A famous man yourself

Your own voice drowned

By London’s roar.

Leeds Town Hall’s portico

Is grand and grander

It grows with money

And with prose but still

I see in the rain and

Dark the Ritz that’s

Boarded up, its exquisite

Carved façade crumbling

Its royal lions weeping

Its stone flowers fading.

The Scala, too, is gone

Even the street

Where it stood,

Only the river

And the canal

Are untouched

In their flow.

By the Office Lock

I go at dawn, ‘Total Anarchy’

Is moored by ‘Milly Molly Mandy’

In perfect rhythm

A man cycles on the towpath

His dog on a lead

Running beside,

They do not notice me

Or falter in their stride.

At dawn in Leeds

I was lost

Once I had left

The lock

Car park, office block,

Grand hotel looming

And no path

But then I found

Back Lane, every

Window blocked,

Every inch cobbled,

A road to nowhere

Built a hundred

Years ago.

I found a gas lamp

Anchored to a corner

Rusty and forgotten

In the glare

Of the million watt

Yorkshire Electricity

Tower of Steel for

The new museum

‘Guns before butter’

And I wonder,

Christian Visionary Poet

Or Regional Romantic

Is there any longer

A place in this city

For me?

By Kirkgate Market

Alone at night

I wandered

The Parish Church’s

Stone lit by a

Hundred bulbs but

Its graveyard

Shifted aside.

Where are the banked

Stones of the dead?

Behind screens they raised

Their bones and counted

Their skulls and moved

Them in barrows.

The railway’s banks

Are buttressed with the

Moved memorial stones

The diggers wore sacking

Over their faces and

Burned their shovels.

Every garden and park

Is a hypothesis for God

When I hear a distant buzz

I cannot tell if it is

A bee or saw.

That is what we must

Decide, patterned being

Or random chance, God

Or nothing, your choice

And mine.

The café by the lake was closed

But when I asked they opened.

Was it God or chance made hearts

Beat like a butterfly’s wing

In January cold?

Good and bad are choice not chance

At sixteen I decided to be a poet,

Writing another’s love poems,

Earning my first praise. My verses

Were appalling until I learned

From Eliot and Alvarez - praise

Where praise is due.

The café staff are chatting in subdued tones,

Wearing white, wondering if they’ll survive

The winter, so do I; at fifty-four I must decide

For poetry, my sons educated just, one at Balliol

One at the Royal College, I have cast my lot

With Lady Luck, I own no property but a book.

In Roundhay’s Tropical World Nepalese Trumpets

Glow in red and yellow like mendicant priests,

The waterfall roars like Lodore and I am more

Myself here than anywhere.

The morning sun is melting

The dome of Leeds Town Hall,

Frost on Kirkstall Abbey stone

Is falling into the Aire;

At fifty-four my dreams

Have ceased, the bowling green

At Eastend Park has gone;

The trams have stopped,

The purple gondola with

Gold sashes locked in a museum;

Jeannie has gone and Chris

And Margaret and Kirkgate

Market’s towers are in flames

Of ice and snow on Magdalen

Bridge with two figures in the

Deer Park wandering in white

Flurries of February dusk.

James Fenton you are King

Of Oxford Poetry and Seamus

Heaney holds the Laureate’s Crown

With sceptre and with gown,

The carved heads have grown

On grey Sheldonian stone.

The railings on the ramparts

On York Wall held my breath

As I walked my ten year old

Spirit in rain and sun, wind

Willing me on while no one knew

Where I had gone.

With every car alarm

I hear the air raid

Siren’s song, Waterloo Road’s

Bomb hole big enough to hold

A bus that could not stop;

Maurice the butcher gave a

Crayoning book I filled in

Until the All Clear went;

I spent a childhood on

The spaces of Red Riding

Hood’s cloak and the gap

Between the Wolf’s teeth

I crayoned in with crimson.

Ellerby Lane School stood

At the hill top, over the

Hollows, its onion dome and

Green railings grieved for the

Abandoned streets of memory;

Only Bridgefield Place remained

With the café and I was left

To wander the Hollows searching

The stones to find the flowers

Of history and buttercups

Chinned my shadow; doorposts

Askew with worn steps

Leading nowhere.

My father’s grey dressing

Gown has gone, his hat

And gloves are lost,

The bus he waited for

No longer runs from

The Bridgefield down the

Hill past the Hollows

Ellerby Lane School is a

Shadow on a snapshot

With me sitting on a car

Bonnet by Bayford’s yard,

Holding a dying pup.

The aunt I loved the

Best was worst of all;

She slept away the war

With every man she knew

While Uncle Jack played

Tanks in Africa and learned

Pontoon at Alamein and then

Broke every window pane on

His return and Grandad

Nicky said, “Decide to go

Or keep your bride” and

Pride lost that day

And Lucifer lay low

And six children grew

In Rough Lea by the

Poplar’s side and when I

Shared their meal; it was

A feast of love and Auntie

Betty smiled as I sat

Beside her on the bench

“There’s always room for

One more inside” and I went along

For the ride.

Ride-a-cock horse to

Roundhay Park where

The tram terminus still

Stands, a bay with poles

Of steel too tall and

Strong to shift, between

The cobbles, tram lines

Lay buried, the upper

Deck is filled with the

Smoke of Capstan Full

Strength and nicotined

Fingers grasp threepenny

Workman’s returns and

“The Evening Post” is read

And rolled and slapped

On Uncle Arthur’s greasy

Overalls from Hudswell

Clarks where ‘Portmadoc’

And ‘Pride of the Glens’

Stand in the sheds, their

Giant wheel spokes true

To a thousandth of an inch.

The fire back is black

And blacker grows with

Black lead and a rose

In the flames is white

Hot in the heat to my

Heart beat as the hob

Swung in and out for

Father Triggear’s pot

Of tea, his enormous red

Calves towered above me

Like a crane, his High

Anglican voice boomed,

“You are a ha’penny short

Of your trip money, what

Am I supposed to do?”

With Father Mulcock

Your alter ego you

Cost me half a lifetime’s faith,

“Not to know who accompanied Christ

Is ignorance worthy of chastisement.”

The dray wheels rolled

Over the ruts, the cobbles

Shone in the frost,

Standish’s woodyard

Burned in the Siege of Troy,

The ramparts of Eastend Park

Were lost when the great

Park gates crashed down.

I left my grandfather’s

Cabin trunk on the last

Bus to Crossgreen and

I put my hand between

The rusted gates to touch

The last lupin of Knostrop

Withering on its stem.

The bridge to nowhere

Stands in the abandoned goodsyard

With the weighbridge I danced on

Still holding me between

Its sheets of steel.

The weighbridge office is

Deserted, pink paint peeling,

Telephones ripped from

The wall, worn desks on

Their side, creosoted

Palings gone, our last

Game of cricket played.

The last coal wagon

Has gone to the tower

At Nevill Hill to be

Hauled high and drenched

And dropped from the sky.

Every house-row would

Glow with red and

Chiaroscuro, walls

Polished by the passage

Of a thousand souls.

The binyards were

White with winter,

Every gable end’s

Attic window

Waited and watched.

The locked petrol

Pumps drew us.

We somersaulted

Over the railings

At dusk.

“Farmer, farmer

May I cross

Your golden fields?”

My first love was Margaret Gardiner

No matter how many hours

We were together I lay in bed

Unable to recollect the wan

Beauty of her face.

Half a century later

I cry at the realization,

My first, my only love.

I remember the rapid patter

Of her laceless runners

Over the hot pavements

Of our sweetheart summers,

Her thin, washed-out

Flower-patterned frock,

Her father in Armley Gaol,

Her mother’s eight hour shifts

Slicing meat in Redmond’s

Pork-butchers’ basement.

Every night her older sister

Went to the pictures or the Mecca

While we sat on the pavement

Making up stories.

I dream of the Aire

By the suspension bridge

Over the sparkling waters

Of a long gone summer night

Where Margaret’s voice is calling,

“I am here, I am waiting.”

After forty years her voice,

Pure and clear

As I ran and bounded

Scattering the waters’

Rainbows of diamonds.

And the streets were

As they had been

Never and always

Bathed in perpetual sunlight

With no mothers to call us

No darkness falling

The light of twilight

Unending.

How she could encompass me

In her own fragility.

In forty years I have

Never encountered

The purity of

Margaret’s girlhood

I have often wondered

What my sexual initiation

With her would have