a fifty fifth poem...'book I read'

‘But anyway’, she says, tilting her head to one side, chin raised a fraction, dark eyes, and I think to myself how I am supposed to continue talking, about something or nothing, or whatever it was, a book I read? The one with the sellotaped spine, coffee stain on the opening page? A show we should go to someday, in the future?  ‘But anyway’, she says, and I try and pick up where it was I left off: the show? the book?, something, nothing. ‘What are you reading?’, I say, lost in between futures and pasts, thinking about the moment on the stair, where she wouldn’t share the same step, dark eyes, and why nothing adds up, but anyway…She’s reading Fitzgerald, and I recall it was I who passed on the recommendation, wrote out a long list on the front/back of a wedding invitation, sent it to her since she asked, loves, hates, passions just like mine - someday our eyes will shine like the sun, and our heads will be clear, and our hearts will be full, and we won’t have to do this, but anyway.  But anyway here she is, and here am I, on the edge, dark eyes, dark head of dark hair to one side, a half empty bottle of cheap red wine, on the edge of something beautiful, the book I read, with the sellotaped spine, coffee stain on the opening page, underneath the book title a pencil line, and someday, in the future, I suppose I’ll think back gladly on these times.  But anyway. 

a fifty fourth poem...'fire'

It’s only the wind, you think to yourself, as the fire dies, and shadows flicker and fall on the drawing room wall, snow on the window ledge, snow driven right up to the front door.  It’s only the wind whistling through the key hole, cold and fresh in the hallway, where your boots, your boots, frayed laces dusted with snow, and the wet trail of your warm, wet feet, in your warm, wet socks indoors, wet footprints across the flagstone floor.  Your hands in the firelight, cross-hatched, etched by lines of age, calluses – you’ll keep them, calluses, for there’s still life in your warm body, warm blood in your fingertips and toes, it’s only the wind.  The logs on the fire, you felled the tree, sharpened the flint, cut the logs for the fire, your grip on the axe handle strong as ever split the wood, and the white smoke from the chimney, there’s still life in this house. Yes, it’s only the wind, there’s still air in your lungs for the bellows, and the flame burns inside your warm body, and your chest lifts and falls, lifts and falls while the fire dances on the drawing room wall, and the flames reflect in your eyes as coals, and the fire hisses and crackles and spits. It’s only the wind, she’s gone, dust and ashes, and a wardrobe full of old clothes, it’s only the wind whistling through the key hole, the hallway draft, her creased leather boots next to yours, cold inside, laces tied fast, soles worn, your soles with mud and ice, frayed laces dusted with snow. Tonight, you’ll go to sleep beside the fire.               

a fifty third poem...'tree'

Clara said once I could never let her down, she said that, and she confused she meant it at the time, and at the time I thought time itself didn’t matter, we were going to be together, through the good times, the bad times, and all the other times when nothing much good or bad happens.  Clara, she said those words, those three pretty little words, and again I thought she meant it.  I love you, never let me down, I’m depending she said, you see that tree out there in the yard I said, yes she said, since there’s only one tree in the yard, that tree is a metaphor for me I said and I ain’t going anywhere, I am rooted like that old tree out there and you can rest in my boughs I said.  But now I remember Clara looked at me strange.  Strange looks, a man can tell when something ain’t right, and strange looks give it all away.  Some people forget a woman’s eyes are a window into their souls, and Clara, hers was right open there in front of mine, but at the time I thought time itself didn’t matter, as well as a whole lot of other things, and I see it now, but I was blinded then - the old sand timer on the sideboard in the kitchen was already tippin’, and soon the china would be rattlin’, tables and chairs movin’, the earth under our feet shakin’, the whole house reverberatin’ with the sound of us fightin’.  Clara said once I could never let her down, she said that, and she confused she meant it, she didn’t understand what it meant to put down roots, and that my love was a seed that only needed even just the thought of her to grow into a tree, like the one out there in the yard.      

a fifty second poem...'sea and sky'

Where the sea and horizon meet, as far as your eyes, where the sea touches the sky, and on the beach, where the waves roll in with the tide, and then out again, where the land connects with the sea, from our sandy seat, here among the sea grass and white sand, from our seat above the beach on the white sand dunes, our backs to the land, the fire-pit still glows, orange embers, black and orange nuggets of coal, charcoal and grey ash from the wood, the thrift store piano we found and broke up, burned to keep the night at bay, on the beach, and out to where the sea touches the sky, the endless shore, if there’s something else, if there’s something more, you have to tell me now, this handful of sand, it will slip away through my fingers and yours, you have to tell me now, for it may be later than we think, where the sea and the horizon meet, to the brink, as far as your eyes, our backs to the land. 

a fifty first poem...'the winter road'

The old low light, pale winter sun, the old low light, soft yellow flames, fallen leaves of red and brown, before the purple dusk, the winter road, hard and grey, the cold stones underneath your feet, hushed houses, silent suppers, quiet outside in the old low light, the open sky streaked with orange, a collared dove on a bare branch, in a garden where the weeds have died back, the winter road, your footsteps on the hard, grey stone, hushed houses, a whiff of wood burning, wood-smoke wafting from a red brick chimney, the low light on the terrace roofs, peeling paint on a blue front door, your old house, where there were dreams, the winter road, your first love, and your last, the only one who could ever tease you, a face framed in a single pane window, quiet outside, red and brown leaves crowding in the gutter, your footsteps muted, another Sunday slipping away before the purple dusk, hushed houses, curtains drawn, the winter road, your hands in your gloves in your pockets, a sweet wrapper, your first love, soft yellow flames, orange streaks in the open sky, the bare branches, twig fingers of a beech hedge, the hawthorns, haw-frost in the morning, the afternoon becoming evening, a couple in their coats pass by, your first love, and your last, the winter road silent but for retreating footsteps, on the cold stone, a broken branch from a young tree, the chill in the still air, your breath, condensation on the inside of a single pane window, hushed houses, silent suppers, logs for the fire, a garage door open in the gathering purple dusk, the old low light on the low edges, corners of buildings retiring, long thin shadows, the winter road, parked cars, ice on wind-shields, your hands in your gloves in your pockets, Sunday slowly Sunday, your first love, the blue front door, her head on the pillow, hair across her face, naked shoulders, the cold stones underneath your feet, the open sky, her dark eyes, where there were dreams, fallen leaves of red and brown, a newspaper trodden into the hard ground, yesterday’s news, today is Sunday slowly Sunday, the afternoon becoming evening, the purple dusk descending, and you still care, and people don’t understand, your first love, the winter road.

an eighty sixth story...'saturday'

The train pulled slowly into the station where Stephen was waiting on the elevated platform, pacing up and down, up and down in his grey trench coat.  A handful of people alighted, and presently the train pulled away again, trundling around the next bend, and out of sight to somewhere else.

From the elevated platform where Stephen paced up and down he could see the hotchpotch roofs of London suburbia: tiled and gently sloping, flat, asphalt, steel and glass, as well as the brick dome of the old theatre adjoined to the Bowls Club, a pub Stephen had once frequented.

In the third and fourth floor windows of the red brick 1930s apartment buildings opposite the station, people woke to another Saturday, fresh and flushed with expectation or groggy and disheveled from the night before. 

Stephen felt in his coat pockets for his tobacco, then in his front and back trouser pockets and found his tobacco was missing along with his cigarette lighter, and he began pacing a little faster, his grey trench coat wrapped around him, concealing his bloodied shirt, feet and toes numb in his red leather DMs.

In a fourth floor window of the red brick 1930s apartment buildings, a heavy set man appeared for a moment in a velvet dressing gown, tied loosely about his middle-aged girth.  With his big right hand he rubbed his chin and two day old stubble, and watched a young man in a grey trench coat pacing up and down, up and down the station platform.  Then he turned away from the window to his wife asleep, a plum-coloured bruise underneath her right eye.

The heavy set man looked at his thick fingers and bit his nails out of habit.  His wife would be fine, and she would say, as she always did to her friends, that it was an accident: ‘dyspraxia’ – the word she used.  ‘Your flat must be booby trapped’, one of her friends had said last time they fought, the heavy set man remembered with a smirk, and he rubbed his chin and two day old stubble again.

On the dressing table at the end of the bed were two half empty tumblers of gin, and an empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire, dried out limes on a white cardboard plate, a knife and a plastic bowl full of cocktail sticks and cigarette ash.  The dressing table mirror his wife had smeared lipstick all over, and this had started it.  The heavy set man told her not to cry, and she became more hysterical, her voice high, until he hit her square in the face, and she had shut up; still, he couldn’t sleep afterwards on a guilty conscience, spent much of the night awake until he heard her stir, and had apologised, and they had kissed.

Stephen paced up and down, up and down, anxious for a nicotine hit.

Alison missed Anthony a lot.  Drawing into another station on the over-ground on her way to meet her friend for morning coffee, she thought how she was already bored with her partner.  Anthony, while he was violent on several occasions, she knew, or at least suspected, had loved her once, and eighteen months after walking out on him, she regretted it; with her partner these days she never felt safe, or sexy, instead pawed over like a stuffed toy, thrills few and far between.

Alison had been in a vulnerable emotional state following her split from Anthony, who she since learned had re-married within nine weeks.   Her partner took advantage, or so Alison felt now, when she needed someone gentle and cuddly, which Anthony was never and would never become.  And yet waking up this Saturday, getting out of bed with the morning sun, and after making tea, looking at her partner slumbering like a pink, rotund post-adolescent baby made her shudder inside.  It seemed like time for a ride, to anywhere, and her friend, she had to admit, was nearly always there for her. 

She searched in her handbag for her cigarettes and discovered one left, paused for a moment as the train came to a stop at the station and then put the pack of cigarettes back into her handbag. 

Alison continued thinking about Anthony and her partner and her life as she was passed by a tall young man, wrapped in a grey trench coat, pacing along the platform.  For a second he swiveled his axe-shaped head toward her and his pale green eyes met hers, before he turned away and walked furtively further on up the platform, hands thrust deep in his trench coat pockets, toward the stair exit.  Alison thought little of it, reached back into her bag to smoke her last cigarette and the train engine shuddered into life, and soon she was looking at the yellows and greens of the young trees and the dead bracken and gorse sliding past the train window.

Back on the high street Stephen felt a hundred sets of eyes on him, and he put his head down and began walking fast.

Alun’s Highland Terrier was nosing around in the tangled and decaying vegetation between the footpath and the rusty iron railings beside the railway.  Alun could hear the whistle of an approaching train ringing in the railway sleepers, and soon the rattle of the carriages as the train drew near. He checked his wrist-watch, it was high time he be heading home, his seven year old was at swimming club, Saturday morning, and he needed to pick her up, his wife being out for coffee or shopping, or both.  The train rattled past where he stood, half concealed by the scrub where Alun’s Highland Terrier was busy exploring.  Alun unzipped his tartan lumber jacket and pulled out the lead.

‘Come on’, he called, and clicked his tongue loudly, and then again, but to no avail.  Perhaps he’s found a bone, Alun mused, and took a few big strides into the scrub to fetch his Highland Terrier, following the rustling sounds in a thicket to his right, where indeed he found his dog, sniffing at and digging up something with its front paws.  The morning had dawned fair, but as ever had grown rapidly overcast, the clouds three or four shades of grey, the darker clouds carrying rain.  ‘What have you found there?’, Alun said to his Highland Terrier, ‘A b-?‘.

Alison leaned over and spooned a little more sugar into her coffee, her friend pretended to look mock horrified, the coffee beans used in the small tea parlour where they were sat passing the morning were the expensive sort.  They had not got on to the subject of Alison’s partner just yet, or indeed Anthony; it had only been a few minutes since they sat down, and then Alison had got up to go next door to purchase more cigarettes while her friend ordered their drinks.

In a way Alison was perhaps unusual, she, unlike a number of females was not particularly forthright in sharing her innermost feelings or fancies, but her friend understood her as far as one can another person.

Alison stubbed out her cigarette, as if ready to speak.  Her friend looked over the rim of her coffee cup, and realising this was perhaps the moment, the reason for them coming together, placed her coffee cup back in the saucer.  Alison hesitated, her long, delicate fingers twisting the ends of her curls, the same way people twist the chord of a telephone, her friend leaned forward ready to listen, and then her mobile rang: ‘Ah’, she said, rolling her eyes, ‘it’s Alun!’, and she answered and Alison went on twisting her curls.

Stephen was remembering Billy's face, his swollen eyes, his battered face like a red blancmange, as if it was in front of him, Billy's swollen face and split gums, in front of his streaming eyes.

The rain was now falling in diagonal slants across the windscreen.  The heavy set man drummed his thick fingers on the steering wheel of his Mercedes as he waited at the traffic lights underneath the railway bridge out of the city.  With his big hands, broad forearms, shoulders and chest hunkered like a boxer, his square face and square neck, the heavy set man looked as if he could rip the steering wheel from the dashboard: a bruising portrait of potential energy.

A white van pulled up beside him with the words PETS painted in cartoon writing on the side.  The heavy set man smirked, recalling the fate of his brother’s dog, kicked to death; for the heavy set man a smirk was as good as a wince, and the lights turned from red to orange, and his foot came down hard on the accelerator, sprinting ahead of the rest of the traffic, until the next set of lights where the white van with the words PETS painted on the side would catch up with him again, and with the white van, his conscience.

Somehow Stephen sensed they were coming for him and he started to run.

She’ll be alright, the heavy set man was thinking, she’ll say she slipped on the floor or walked into a closing door, or something. She’ll be alright.  Her friends would believe her, they always did, she’d never.  She was fine. She’s a tough one, she wouldn’t stand up to it otherwise, and she knows how it is.  She was fine and she’d never, she’d…the wail of a police siren somewhere back in the traffic interrupted the heavy set man’s recurring train of thought. And as he was slowing to pull over he saw someone running fast along the adjacent pavement, grey trench coat flowing behind.

Stephen knew instinctively he was running for his freedom, and his life, slaloming in and out of the near static Saturday morning crowds that drifted along the pavement, the pavement he was now sprinting along, his red DMs hammering the concrete slabs left right left right left right.  But the sirens were getting louder and louder in his ears and he was only running on fear, in a blind white panic.  He could sense the traffic parting to make way for the police, and out of the corner of his eyes he could see cars all along the high road slowing and pulling over. 

Slowing down did not seem an option for Stephen: it seemed the only option left for him in his whole life was to keep on running. He could already feel his lungs burning, his throat tightening, his head throbbing, lungs burning with fire, throat as tight as a tourniquet, the veins in his head pulsing with hot blood, his eyes wide and streaming, the whites of his eyes wide and burning, his legs, and his arms, his legs and arms moving of a will of their own. His heart pounding, pounding and pounding, his legs, arms becoming pistons, steam driven pistons driving him on and on and on, his legs and arms together like the great wheels of a locomotive, steaming pistons propelling him inexorably forwards, forwards, forwards: there was no going back now, and no point in looking over his shoulder, or wishing time, and Stephen ran and ran and ran, ran his knees into the hard concrete, the rubber soles of his red DMs burning and wearing, burning and wearing, his legs and arms like steaming pistons, streaming whites of his eyes. His whole head split open on the hard concrete.

‘That’s him’, said the police officer, when they arrived out of breath at where Stephen had fallen a few moments earlier, head split apart. ‘What a mess’, said the other police officer, Stephen’s head open in half, spilling fresh red blood on the hard concrete, pooling on the pavement where he had been running and running.  ‘Do we call an ambulance?’, asked the other police officer, Stephen’s legs and arms, twitching, his feet, in his red DMs, splayed out underneath his twitching body. ‘That’s him alright’, said the police officer, ‘well I never’ - they had been looking for a week.  And Stephen had been running until Saturday.

The heavy set man passed the scene in his Mercedes, confused at the same time enthralled by what the commotion was about, passers by had formed a ring around Stephen's body, with all life shuddering from it, the two policemen trying to hold the gathering crowd of Saturday shoppers from encroaching further.  Back on the fourth floor of the 1930s red brick apartment buildings, the heavy set man's wife was crying hot tears in a cold shower; at the coffee shop Alison was hanging on in quiet desperation for her friend to return; and her friend was with her husband Alun at the local police station shocked and subdued, their seven year old daughter at swimming club once again kept behind, waiting.

a ninth reflection...'fans, identity and lower league away days: from southend to morecambe bay'

Southend is fifty-five minutes on the train from Liverpool Street station, three or more hours from Cheltenham.  What for me last weekend was an afternoon jaunt out of London accompanying a travelling band of Cheltenham Town away fans - two of them - was for the other seventy-five who went to watch their team against Southend United a whole day on the road to (and back from) Roots Hall, where Southend, managed by permatan Phil Brown, play their football.

Tickets for the game cost £21, and throw in an extra £5 for a Pukka Pie as hot as Hades, as well as a cup of lukewarm greased tea even five sugars could not improve (the other choices being a bottle of Fanta, or a cup of coffee, the granules made specially from Southend estuary silt), not to mention £XX for petrol, and it wasn’t a cheap day out for Town fans travelling from Cheltenham either.

Moreover, although Town put in a spirited performance, Saturday, they lack style, grace and composure, all composites of the beautiful game, whereas Southend, at least in central midfielder Michael Timlin, a product of Fulham’s youth academy, have a little class.

The depth of feeling for football in the UK is a source of mild astonishment to football fans beyond these shores, especially given the dim view of the standard of the lower leagues wrongly, but often rightly taken into account. 

And yet although the Cheltenham Town away support isn’t exactly an army, it too seems unfair to brand them barmy in what they do, and why they do it.

While it may seem strange to give up a whole day every week for half of the year, for the best part of a lifetime to actively be a Cheltenham Town away fan, or an away fan of any other of the teams doggedly battling through the very constant lows of life in Sky Bet Division Two, having endured 90 minutes of fairly uninspiring football against Southend, Town, a goal down, and seemingly sliding toward a seventh defeat of the season, won a penalty in extra time which Matt Richards scored to earn a draw. And then it dawned on me.

From kick off it became clear that of the seventy-five Cheltenham fans at Southend, several knew each other, presumably having shared the fairly routine drudgery of watching their side together for a number of seasons, and it was easy to detect the kind of camaraderie any of us in our daily lives would seek out, as well as no shortage of gallows humour.  This could of course be true of away fans of bigger teams.

Then, at the final whistle, shortly after Richards’ equalising spot-kick, the players, almost to a man, came right over to show their appreciation for the travelling support, hands above their heads in applause, one or two shaking hands with the fans and exchanging thanks.  And being one of just seventy-five, it was easy to see how - at the same time as appreciating the mutual respect between the players and their supporters - as an away Town fan, one could also be made to feel rather special.

There is quite a powerful identity in the guise of the lower league away fan.  Not only do you outwardly reflect a certain individuality of spirit, being one of very few whose allegiance lies somewhere other than Old Trafford Megastore, or the Chelsea FC hotel, as well as an appearance of integrity, being true to one’s hometown or roots, both, too, are easily internalised and readily understood.  This adds reassurance, key to a strong identity.

Furthermore, there are few things in life one can describe oneself as that have individualistic and collective components to a single identity, except of course belonging to a particular family.  And being a definitive part of a particular family, it seems, is how the lower league away fan feels, and with the feelings of belonging and identity that a particular family engenders, there also comes a pride that can be immensely satisfying.

The Town away fans at Southend must feel every Saturday afternoon, whether at Roots Hall, or the Globe Arena in Morecambe Bay, someone in their own right, someone part of something bigger than themselves, and yet that that something is very much of their own, yet again shared with the rest of the away family who follow Cheltenham through not very thick and really quite thin up and down the country.