the red hole on the tips

 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

 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

the black path that turned red

 the black path that turned red

cold but fearless

the toboggan sped down the black path

until it hit a stone and spat us out

from the bus stop down to station road

straight as a die it walked the workmen

there and back again

and took us off on adventures 

to there and maybe

either side poor grass existed

under the tips that existed

always since

alight at the bottom 

and there was the culvert that ran

long under the station

dripping with the white stalactites

of our daring dripping staring 

for the other side of did

one night

the black path turned red

ochre cinders injected a surprise

that permanence could demise

that snow melts

and we leave no footprints 

on our many merry ways

other than the can 

that we kick down memory lane

the band house

 the band house

dad called it 

but when we pushed secretly

inside was nothing

bits of something 

that amounted to nothing

enough our secret that the locked door

could be pushed enough for daring

to do what daring does 

did

but outside was treasure

for fingernails that could climb

the slagstone and brick built walls

under the eves’ eyes were sparrow nests

and eggs that egged peter goodall 

to tell his nan 

to tell my mum

i was not at all good

remonstrations volleyed

don’t get caught dad said

and i treasured that

as the band played

tadpoles springs and wells

 tadpoles springs and wells

the waiting game

first there was christmas 

then there was the new year

then the slowly days

cold wet dark long days when

nothing eyed the moon clouds

not even a glimmer

yet a thought stirred in the jam jar

a washed thought from last year

pupil wide in its awe some

frog spawn trifled somewhere deep

asleep since the since days

before that summer 

when they walked away

remembering what was not lost

those fists of wobbly springtime

early mind you some years

better check in the running

across the fields of hope 

to the red well and the spring pool

where they will be 

where they will be

there they are

didn’t i tell you

didn’t i tell you

home to the tank of watching

until their legs escape time

and off they go into the warm grasses

as i brush myself off my knees

station road

 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

something to build on

 something to build on

the copper works

the old folks told of them

as if they had been there

but had not 

the veins in their hands 

as blue as the soot walls 

where the men had certainly been

and clog-hobbled the cobbled roads

between the buildings in ruin now

walls only with sky roofs

that pushed us in

brick doors and windows

of bricks that could be levered out

to within an inch of catastrophe 

our childhood was within that inch

bricks conveyed by laughing hands

with a cunning plan

to build an organised tower

atop of the old quay wall

higher that daring did

sweat contemplation long held

and staid the hand’s itch

to topple the river’s flowing calm

time’s up decided a shared look

and a push is all it took

S P L A S H

like you have never seen

in guilt’s quick look around

until smirk ruled the moment

an instant’s turning decided

footfall to another wall

more bricks quick

for dereliction entered our pantheon

and a dereliction of duty it would have been

to have grown up without having stirred

the few ghosts from which our naughtiness 

no doubt raised a dusty smirk