THE DYNAMO FIELDKevin Cadwallender

FIRST PUBLISHED 1997 MACKAY JACK PUBLICATIONS

MACKAY JACK PUBLICATIONS26 Hanover Grange,Grangemouth, FK3 8LF,Scotland.copyright 1997 THE AUTHORPublished MACKAY JACK 1997 .

Original ISBN 0 9521472 5 4

For John

JUST ANOTHER BEACH POEM

The sea has been told to stay behindand writes endlesslines on an empty beach.

A seagull’s wingbeaten by deathfans sand acrosslucky horseshoes.

The sun is stillthe same busy bodyingold schmuck,head in clouds.Cutting up rough

on pink podgy thighs.

Ice cream jerks offOnto bland pavement.Punch and Judywith those newsocial conscience puppets;The community workerand The relate counsellor.

The sea acts out its daily ritual,Moons around in wet dreams.

A coin in a slot will buy you everythingbut what you need.

THE DYNAMO FIELD

A thousand footballs agodown the scabby-kneed,short back and sides of childhood,We chalked stumps on a walland argued over dust.Light failed us in the four-leaf clovernights of lucky innocence and storiesspun under arcing streetlightspedalled our frightened bicyclesthrough the Frankenstein streetswith werewolves and vampiresat our bristling necks.When blazing brambles sparked holesin knitted pullovers until we reekedof mackerel in the haystack torchinginfernos on the dynamo field.

And oh! How we loved you then;Mam and Dad in the fireside,hot water bottle, candy stripe pyjama,Channel eight and verichrome years.

With your arms about us,And the double thickness of homeblanketing nightmare.

Waiting for Christmas treesby frozen windows.

DIGGING FOR WATER (for Omar)

Comparative it seems,Though Allah movesthe waters and skyand breathesinfinitesimal and infinite..........for you. And me?Watching dark clouds,shrugging offwhat passes for poetry,In the eye of the unseenand perhaps, for me, the unseeing.

There is movementin that void when youbow your head.To the powerand the breath that you detect, stirring treesand souls in absolute prayer.

Comparative,for me,Words agitatethe vacuum.

We will dig for water

in Baca.

COOKING KIPPERS FOR THE CAT

Dave is cooking kippers for the cats,In the debris and the penance of his flat.And making coffee, once more for meas I ponder under the purring of fleasthis scrum of backs. The smoked smell of fishalerts this squadron of cat-napping,bird-snatchers and mice-biters, They synchronise their movementsand wrap themselves around legslike fur puttees.

I flick through a tired copyof Pickard’s Jarrow March,Target a particular pointon the floral patterned wallpaperwith my watch face.Tease the kitten out of an old cat.

Gone now....With the advent of cloud.A whip of tail betrays frustration.

Nothing changes much.The imperceptible march of days.Grey faced marchers in a poet’s book.

Going down to Londonto look at the Queen.

DREAMS OF A NORTHERN RIVER

Drunk with theDarkness of your body,Rippling overMy drowned head.

The veins of the cityEmpty themselves into the mouthOf this old brown-ale god.Cold as lagerin the chilled roomsof my North-East.

Dreams of a Northern river.Water pouring down Dog Leap stairs,Lord Collingwood up to his ankles,Boat-hearted I free the fishin all the choked nets of the Tyne.

REMEMBERING NORMAN

I was remembering Norman.Never any good at football,His hands fidgeting down the frontof his unfashionable football shorts.Open season for every would be bully.

At the school gates at home time,Beaten once again in an unfair fight,You cried; before,during and after blows;And I knew then that those were not theFirst blows to go astray.

Later, caught trying to steal affectionFrom your Mam’s purse,You bought sweets, to buy friendsWho lasted as long as a penny chew.

And your Dad,Big Anglican, little manWith your frightened Mother,Kneeling at the altar on Sunday mornings.Pious, Christian bully boy,Beating little boys like you and your brother.Red handed in the urine soaked sheets,He beat you,So you wet the bed,And your Father beat youfor wetting the bed.

DREAMS OF DARKEST LEITH

Three poets in search of the source.

Hand-pulled in some tied El Dorado.And lager that shines like Incan gold.Cigarettes, snuff and marijuana.We all have our own waysof seeking Nirvana.

Between florid gossip and definitionFalls the thirst.Between emptying and filling pagesFalls the thirst

By the waters of LeithI heard the casuals singing,I do not think they will sing to me...

Three poets heading the wrong way.Pollaxed by geography and fatal drugs.Water flowing like poetry overEmpty cans and age old roots.

SKID MARKS ON THE ANTI-MACASSAR

A lost key and splintered woodwork.Coffee without milk or sugar,Dog-ends from choked ashtrays.Fist-marks on plywood doors.Threadbare existence to match the carpets.A found coin for light and heat.Red bills gathering like clans.

One ring left on an electric cooker.Dead geraniums on a sunless window sill.Two crusts in a metal bread bin.Cold peas from a tin with a stolen spoon.Books by candlelight in a nylon sleeping bag.Breathing out plumes in a freezing room.Stolen silver from an old red phone box.The smell of condoms on your fingers.Lust and lager in a cold climate.Skid marks on the Anti-macassar.

HOME COMFORTS

The dead birds you poisoned with kindnesson those familiar doorsteps.

The fat cat asleep on coal bunkerssated with sparrows and gormless pigeons.

The insistent beat of Beatles recordsfrom when vinyl was King.

The New Year we sang Auld Lang Synealthough we never knew the wordsand never will.

The broken clock that told the timesounds the alarm with a cracked voiceand only we know why.

The hard side of your hand on my face.The tears and the tissues of lies.

The way the vacuum cleaner no longerknows what it was made for.

These home comfortsDrag us kissing and screaming together.

THE LEAST OF SORROWS

She has manipulated these tearsand even now uses eachcareful trickle to twist the blade.

She is carefulnever to overstate the grief.Preferring the slow single tear;The sad abandoned look,To outright weeping.

Jesus wept,But never with such guile.I hold her in my armsand pray for the least of sorrows.

JARROW ELVIS

Waiting for a bus to the gig.With a red electric bill in his sequined pocket.Smokes the only drug he can afford; fameIn its hideous form.Gyrates in front of bus loads of nurses.Who should know betterand is exploited as his namesakefor cash on the barrel.

CARNIVAL

In Peterleea two faced clockcalls time on thehanging gardens of Sunny Blunts.At this dull end of Summerit is crucial to be happy.To wear the gaudy red and whiteof clowns, of football strips,of carnivals ribboned withshreds of gingham and tinsel.At this overpriced daytrip,this hot dog and mustard,big dippered-dodgem world,where ox roast in the candy flossof morning and garish paintedcarousel horses dervish the childrenaway to rickety shys wheregoldfish are brought to diein small glass worlds,inside the box houseseeking out thegeometry of reality.

THE HURTLING DOWN OF MAGDALEN

Brickworkand all the dazzling daysshe ripped through;paper bags of bookswith notes scribbled in marginsin bargain bins.Lipstick kisseson tissues inthe debris of billet-doux.Lecturers and students;Push and pull,Poised like a gargoyle.Stretches out,Wingless birdsailing over academia,missing air currentson the cobbled courtyard.No words for historiansto paraphrase.

POST SCRIPT

He ripped a page from a diarythrew it in the general directionof the fire;She can burn in HellHe muttered,Though he knewthat angels such asshe were seldom expelled from Heaven.

Abandoned,yet remorsefulat some time later,when sense hadbeen restored.He sellotapeda crumpledhand-writtengoodbyeinto thefoolscap of memory.

Warming his handson photographsblisteringon the hearth.

THE BEEKEEPER’S SON

Honey-fingeredDavid entertainsa swarming handstung by innocence,A little boy witha scrum of bees.

Children, mouths ajarin the puns of summer.Dandelion heads andjam-red lips.Busy as bodiesin the killing glass.Pollen countingup to ten.The adult net catches all comers.

.....and someone made them all,and someone great or small,if not God, then someonehalf-wise or merely wonderful,had a moment of blinding alacrity,Got their fingers in the meldof tiny wings.

YOU WHO TALK OF GHOSTS

You, who talk of the spinning of ghosts,

Haunt this piece of vellum.You whose words are serratedAnd cut patterns in skin, offer meA web of entanglements.

I am more or less a ghost myself,Drifting between ephemeral passions.Lost and something less than flawless.I find my face, harsh in drab dusk.A dot-to-dot man, whose edgesare obscured by crayons.

You who talk of ghostsAnd retribution,Ebb at the sheerest tide.Offer me the white of stoneagainst the pure red beatingOf heart.

WHEN THE WHISTLE STOPS THE QUADRANGLE

When the whistle stops the quadrangle.And the darting games of children.French skips and serge-blue handstands.Glass slides under crackling segs.Frozen Corks in miniature milk bottles.Standing in rows at long hot radiators,Gloves, damp and the smell of wet wool.Hands gripped by ice and pain

like fingers fat after the swish of cane.

Maureen Smith, I loved you.Because your Dad was in the army.Arm in arm jumping double-deckershadows on the Coast Road outsideof Cemetery gates.Sharing gloves and Jub’lees.I would have loved you until bedtime.

When the whistle stops the quadrangleand the cars were silent as a whisper of newspaper.Staring at the rose hip syrup, spreadingthickly across tarmac.We were another two children.Mr. Riley, who used to dress as Santa Clausin his Greengrocer’s shop, wiped his wet faceon a cotton wool beard.An old man stubbed a Woodbine at the kerband took off his cap, even though it rained.We lost the way we used to laugh that day.

In the musty air of your bedroom.You told me simply,Sometimes I wet the bedAnd I did not have the courageOr the understanding to tell you that, It didn’t matter.

Norman. It didn’t matter.Too late, as it happens.This powerless apology.

SNECK

Lifting the sneck, rusted to the painted gate.I watch your eyelids opening as I push with clemmied boot.You rise from a cracket like some ancient god,All leather-skinned and billowing with tobacco twist.Your pipe knocking on wood like a robin with a snail.or at least; I remember your hopelessly happy voice

Singing between the rows Where your cabbages have gone to seed.I replace the sneck as I leave.Hand the allotment keys over,To the man who ignores the wayI grin at his sickle.

NO REASON TO BE SINGINGfor a Burundi Tribes woman.

There is no reason to be singing.There is no reason for you to be singing.Yet you are singing.Words form whole in your mouthAnd pour out from your open mouth.There is no reason not to be crying.There is no reason for you not to be crying.Yet you do not cry.You just sit and wait to die.Singing.

There is no reason why I should cry.There is no reason why I should be crying.Yet I cry.Tears form pools in my headand stream down my open face.

There is no reason to sing.There is no reason for you to be singing.

There is no reason why I should not sing.Yet I do not sing.I do not know the wordsTo your tune.

I just sit and listenbroken into piecesby your elegy.

STALKS AND STEMS

Dark city night.I am walking behind a womanat my usual pace.It is raining and I cannot see her face.She is hurrying through puddlesand reeling off lamp posts.Suddenly;I am conscious of her fear.I start to cross to the other pavementbut she has made her move a fractionof a second before me and it’s too late to stop.

She half turns and sees me cross,Panic hits her... I stop.She is paused under a streetlight.Transfixed like a rabbit in a headlamp.I smile but she sees a leer.I would speak ...but words can be misconstrued.I stand stock still.She breaks like a mouseavoiding a hawk.I hover in that one spotconsidering her options.I wait until her footfallis out of earshot.Relief washes down gutters

into storm drains.I am so sorry.That it has to be like this,Even when it isn’t.

NEWTON’S CRADLEThe actions of two bodies upon each other are equal but opposite

Every time he hits her,She bruisesand the harder he hitsthe more it hurts.Every time he tells herhe loves her and he’s sorrythere is an equal butopposite reaction.

She tells herselfthat the love she has given;the support, the childrenwill balance out in the future.Will all come back to her .. one day.,but until then..she must not rock the cradle,must not push too hard,must not keep Newton’s third law.

Every time he hits her.The urge to hit backgrows strongerand the harder he hitsthe harder it gets to resist.

Cornered in the bedroom, children crying,She cuts the strings of Newton’s Cradle,feels resistance dissipate in blood...Swinging free... ... ... Swinging free.

WHEN I WOKE UP YOU WERE BURNING

When I woke up you were burningand the fire had grown cold.In the bitter air we breathed outPlumes of recrimination.

I could not light a match.Shivering in fingerless gloves,I watched you through frost-laced windowsUnfurling your wings in daylight.

You looked at me without recognitionAnd took to thunderous skies.Here alone and infinitely mortalI shape your effigy out of clay.

I could not light the fire.I could not keep you here.When I woke you were burningAnd now;A thousand fiery martyrscannot keep me cold.

HANGING MURIEL

Snow scene on the living room wall.Dad and Mam and Auntie Dot.The way lino used to crackWas the way it turned out.

Throwing sugar into flames.The blue rush and hiss.An old fur coat thrown over a bed.A white dog with a red collar.

Grit thrown onto windows in the early mist.Climbing up and down drainpipe exits.Candle wax melted onto a hand like a glove.Falling from the top of the monkey climb.

John and Janet and Kevin.Look at the way it turned out.

An ambulance took my Father awayand never brought him back.Cancer took my brother awayand never even asked.

Snow scene on the living room wall.

Where’s Dad? I asked once.Hanging our Muriel? Mam said.

UNCLE KEVIN’S AQUARIUM

We have won these goldfish annually

at hometown carnivals instead of cheap toys.We have arrived at the number fivewhen all the other prizes are long dead;smudges in jotters,one sentence in the essay entitledWhat I did during half-termI tell my childrennot to bring goldfish homebut the irony of my pleashas them hooked,I am easy prey.A small recompensefor the trawled oceansI reason, considering thiscuboid of water.We watch them swim.Give them slave names,keep the water from stagnatingwith pipes and pumps and electricity.They are a burden on our economy.They are a metaphor for guilt.Swimming effortlesslyunder a wooden canopythat holds in its benevolence Food and light and five kitchen size matchboxes.

THE TEMPEST

Caliban Edwards the worse for twenty years of drinkreally believes that this barmaid who has heard it allbefore is the one for him. Lurches up and orders onefor the road, gabbles out some perfunctory remarkbefore slipping out to the take away and the usualclammy hand under the duvet.

and love is a forlorn hopein this grubby little worldand why bother with romancewhen you don’t know the stepsto this erroneous dance.Miranda Richards clears away the debriscatches a taxi to her mother’s ideal home,lies awake thinking of all the flotsam thatfloats on the head of a gallon of drink. tells herselfthat amongst the drips who gather around the driptrays there must be one who is special. closes2525 her eyesthinks about a jacket in dorothy perkin’s window.and love is a mystery to itselfit is unable to contemplate howlow it has fallen and like everyprecious commodity depreciatesin the passing of days.Ferdinand Jenkins has a fax and a mobile phonewrites love letters to strangers on the internet,books a bucket seat for a desperate fortnighton some god forsaken island.

2525