Last night I dreamt of the potato fields again.
The early Sunday mornings, the damp mist creeping over long grass
from the River Rea and finding breathing
space in the surrounding mud of the neglected bank and glistening dew filled
spider webs that criss-cross and weave
through the rusty ailing railings in which many a leather football found its
untimely end.
The Sunday mornings in which my dad would don his early 1970’s style
Aston Villa top, the era of undisguised dejection for many a fan
Birmingham, damp, soaking wet
And I feel the
Rain
Teem and rinsing at
My every pore
But welcoming me back with open arms
In greeting to a prodigal son
As I leave the bright modern station
Of New Street.
The autumn darkness shields me
Like an roughly made cloak and I remain invisible
To all who once played like I
In the Costermonger’s basement. The sound of an air guitar
Straining at the leash as the crash of a new beat
Hit our 14 year old minds.
I dreamed of playing on an English lawn.
The gentle ripple of applause as I waved acknowledgment
To all quarters for my prowess at staying out in the middle
As I knocked off the 100 runs
Before Tea
In front of a passionate Lords crowd.
Botham was my hero, joined at the hip
With Gooch when he scored 333
Until he flicked
The ball away in act of what seemed tiredness.
Botham was my hero, cricketing god
Joined by Atherton, Willis, Lamb, DeFretias, Hussain, Stewart, Tufnell, Cork
I thought I’d get a job in Switzerland
waiting tables, taking orders and
existing in a hole the Swiss permit,
but Rousseau must not have had it writ.
I’d sit and watch the water of the earth
spring forth and counter this employment dearth.
Yet water on its own cannot contain
the evolution of this reductive train
of thought: avoiding England’s harm
by overreaching Empire’s furthest arm.
It’s taken 24 hours to sink in,
as would a swimmer, with his goggles perched
on plugged nose, expect the dive. Goosebumped skin –
the tell-tale silhouette of the millstone.
The bard is lost to us. Only thinking
of him on a train, or in a field.
There’s no buoyancy in this afterthought:
Sean can get the drinks in (he’s been waiting)
and there’s so many fish still to be caught.
Somewhere far off, a stranger departed
before the last train home. I’ll spend some time
browsing on the District and Circle line.
I’ll find my place (it’s marked) where sunners lay
and sleep in moss while Seamus speeds away.
It is not Hamilton, a place in which my granddad enthused over
In his semi-waking dreams and in which, even as a small boy, I knew
He would rather have stayed, grown old in and perhaps
Even rather have passed
Away peacefully in the comfort of a town
That he once had played baseball and swam across its neighbouring lake.
Montreal he had only mentioned as a place that he had seen once,
From the deck of one ship and then from the deck of another
When the family left Canada to come to England via
I hold you in my arms, I cradle you like a proud dad handing out cigars
As I breathe in the cold talons of winter that approaches
The Wiltshire town. Overhead twinkling streetlights outshine the unseen stars
And the vermin of life, rats, bacteria and cockroaches
Of which I try to keep you away from.
I hear a sound of people gathering round, tears in their
Eyes. let the public come near, let the ghoulish come
And see what becomes when the dream of life turns to nightmare.
They took your life
Dearest Mother, though I took my brother’s place at the front of the line,
I became him, I took his name
To spare the family honour, I must admit I am scared
Of being in this insane and absurd battlefield game.
In my wisdom, I believed the words they said
When for home by Christmas I would be by your side
Now as mustard gas shines like some evil suitor dishing out charming lies
Across No Man’s Land
I feel for those women who will lose husbands, sons, lovers tonight
6,000,001…
By Ian D. Hall.
Cast: Mr Kitson: An old man scared by images of war.
Nurse: Mental Health worker.
Ruth: Mr Kitson’s daughter.
Stan: A soldier with the Royal Army Medical Corps stationed at Belsen.
Young Dutch Woman, Elke.
Soldier: Private Ruggs.
Ruggs, Elke and Ruth are all played by the same actor.
Act One
The sound of cheap laughter flowed across the bar of Harry’s Hula Hut.
The half-suppressed sneers, hilarity and piss taking at the English
Lad who said he could earn one of the shirts on the wall,
Only resolved my focus further to own the shirt that had entranced me
Since I first step foot in the door with Geoff and Carlos as they fought back
The crowds in search of the women they had chatted up
Earlier in the day.
I had spent my afternoon taking it easy, a visit to the Marvel Offices,