what ~ surely not
what are we
but selected bits of the earth
assembled to a plan that works
bits of plans that did not work
or that work around our plan
we are both a plan
and parts of a plan
that is itself not planned
but a result of
bits of a war
pieces that resemble peace
not one is unsoiled
try swallowing that
birthday candle
the wick
of pre-gestation
was lit by …?
the wick
post-mortis
is snuffed by …?
life waxes lyrical
for what else can it do
station road
dark the looped light
from the swan-neck lampposts
single globes along a dark dread
furtive
catapults fisted
silence
darkness
breathless
ping plutt out
next one
ping putt out
run
hands trailing along the wall capped
with slag bot triangles black as the night
as cold as fear driving feet up stumble tracks
to a viewpoint gasping at gaps in the chain
of tomorrow’s curses from the workmen
with their ladder’s rungs ringing our necks
bent back in laughter
loud enough to last seventy years
and a light coming on
that refuses to be extinguished
this side of our graves
stealing javelins
the joinery factory
two shops that supplied sawdust
for guinea pigs and rabbits
arrow heads for our bows
made of privet and string
and the metal dowels found
were bound into real arrow heads
we hunted the dark evenings
in the storage sheds
our quarry were laths of wood
of javelin length
taken to sharpen
and handled to carve
performance in the field
the old night watchman was a magician
who appeared from nowhere
and escape was a divine deliverance
across the darkening fields
tomorrow threw a javelin party
and the devil boys threw the furthest
caution to the wind
the third tips
ochre red and clinker roaded
around from the spelter works
to the pluck lake
notorious for its bottomless depth
a pit shaft underneath awe said
disproved by the vicar with his plum-bob
boated against a tide of disapprobation
reeds one end and a ship’s boiler the other
to fish off for roach with bread dough
under a floated wish
the upper bank branch line banked
to the west ~ to the east tunnels two
to walk a stamped echo through while
an express train thundered overhead
sandy embankments
where grass snakes slumbered
the ruined cooling tower
where the frogs bathed
many the dusk of expectation ended
with the tiddlers thrown back
and the monster fish away on holiday
how long has it sat there
between the slag ridges and signals
gathering beady eyes to the slag
in search of copper splashings
from time’s furnace
worth a bob or two when hessian sacked
and delivered to the scrap man
with no questions asked
rich pickings on a summer evening
within easy footfall of the garden gate
and the rare spilling of the northern lights
to complete this fairytale
the red hole on the tips
a boundary of exploration
stretched as thin as daring went
slither-foot across the tips
the tips
going across to the tips mum
leant us time to explore things
things
like the series of tar dumped humps
not worth a thought but worth
an undulation of a run to somewhere
across the scrub on either path
around the red hole
that red brick built castellated circle
where each had a seat designated
around the jump down where a gun was
in the war we intoned as one
subterranean wide-eyed smoked out bravado
in the room of a fire’s dare do
that often didn’t do
go on you try it and see
travelled around the red hole
there were paths down the other side
that shifted with the deceit of a serpent
stoned dead in the memory that mapped
our tips
slag stones and ashes built their history
an spat out broken shards of marmalade jars
and stoneware from the midden earth
that placed us somewhere on the timeline
where we hung our adventures
and ran
back along the getting there
the five fountains
mattie’s gutter
white water from the culvert
under the road from the garage
beside the thought of where from
who addled it white and slow
to pool on this side of our going
to the flume where it went on
to fall a thoughtless fall
small and putrid in its landing
on something better not thought
except the boy’s knew
the five fountains
can you
watch me
palm down into the flume
fingers supplicated wide
the trickle was the trick that
from each finger flowed
one of the five fountains
i did it
hands up a yes yes
i did it
can you
runs through the days escapade
for tomorrow who knows
what will flow
