POETRY

GRISDALE

'If you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather'

(MacNeice)

From Stony Rigg the swollen hills

Rise up through mist and sodden moors,

In tidal waves of rain that drown

The dale below as flooded gills

Leap into Grisdale Beck, then down

To Garside Head, the road to Hawes,

To pour itself into the Clough,

The Lane, the sea, which cannot drain

This river dry of Pennine rain,

Though seas are never full enough.

The radio brings news from Asia,

A long way from this cold and wet,

Where sabre-toothed economies

In Thailand, South Korea, Malasia,

Devour their tails, and Japanese

Investment banks collapse in debt,

As Yen and Won come crashing down

Like trees that fall into the river,

And now we all must face this weather

Like sheep in roofless, dry-stone barns

There's nowhere sate from the Irrational

Workings of the markets; cold seas

Of greed and graft devour the earth,

The rain of money's international,

And bursting banks are never full enough.

Outside the mist begins to freeze,

This rain is set to last for ever.

The dying light is washed away,

The fire grins; we're warm today,

But who can now predict the weather?

A long way from the Pacific rim,

The cold is crying through the lock.

Outside, the ranks of dripping fir

On wooded hillsides add their grim

And lonely beauty to the blur

Of green and grey. inside, the clock

Slows down like rain through dripping trees

We pour ourselves another drink

And stare into the fire and think

Of sinking hills and rising seas.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

For Liz Lush and Peter Salt

from the place where he now stood, even to the end of the valley, the way was all along set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets here, and so full of pits, pitfalls, deep holes, and shelvings,' (Bunyan)

From Houghton House the sleepy plain's

A beer-mat scene of harvest gold,

Where citizens of sleep's domain

Wake up to find their dreams gone cold

And England sold to profiteers

In sleepy, sleepy Bedfordshire.

Between the quarried and the bricks

Between the landfill and the clay,

All earthly aspiration sticks

Hungover in the light of day

(Like those who sup on Bombadier

In sleepy, sleepy Bedfordshire).

But something in this treeless vale

Stilt stirs the yeast of earth-bound schemes,

Like prelate's broth and local ale

And chillastic sects that dream

Of Armageddon's panacea

In sleepy, sleepy Bedfordshire.

Between the morning star and bed

The vale sides are strange and steep

So pilgrims lay their sleepy heads

As in a dream and yet not sleep

And see a vision shining clear

In sleepy, sleepy Bedforshire.

He who would leave a tinker's cottage

To prove some dreams are not for sale

Must learn to price a mess of pottage -

(TWELVE YEARS BANGED UP IN BEDFORD GAOL)

For peaceful dreams come very dear

In sleepy, sleepy Bedfordshire.

As sleepy taxi-drivers know when called

On midnight trips to even scores

In smack and cocaine border wars

And end up dead to all the world

Their progress marks the wild frontiers

Of sleep In sleepy Bedfordshire

And pilgrim tourists passing by

Don't see the crack below the street,

Who keep their eyes upon the sky

Don't see the pit beneath their feet

Who follow steps that disappear

Up wooden hills to Bedfordshire

While Mansoul's fast asleep in bed

The night takes flight on cobweb wings

And crawls inside the sleepers head

To lay the eggs of nightmare things

That breed the Diabolonian fears

That stir in sleepy Bedfordshire

But even sleepy English scenes

Like this must choose to dream or wake

And know the difference between

The two and waking help to make

The cold night's pitfalls disappear

In sleepy, sleepy Bedfordshire.

What's lost by night's regained by day

As morning washes Mansoul clean,

The sun comes up once more to slay

The monsters of the night's ravine

And shows the sun-lit way shine clear

On hills that lead from Bedfordshire.

Just less than 30 minutes on the clock And you're already running out of puff. You've also hit a kind of mental block: In case the running wasn't tough enough, Half-marathon arithmetic's dead hard! You check your watch and try to do the sums (How many miles a minute, hours a yard, Is tough with just your fingers and your thumbs). Subtract the time you took to pass the start, Divide by four, times by 13.1 And take off sixty! Easy if you're smart But not if - just a minute though, hang on You try the maths again just to be sure, That can't be right, there must be some mistake, Eight minute miles - that's 1hr 44! The next nine miles should be a piece of cake! Alas, from this point on your griefs begin. The next three miles you're running on your tod, From Pelaw on the crowds begin to thin; Which leaves you feeling lonely as you plod Towards the coast without the roadside cheers Of camera-waving family, friends and neighbours, Without their urging ringing in your ears You're left to face your solitary labours.

To be alone and yet completely hidden Among so large a throng you quickly find The most unlikely ghosts turn up unbidden And run beside you till they fall behind. Up on your left's a kind of labour heaven, A whole estate named after those long dead Keir Hardie, William Morris, Pankurst, Sevan Who each would be black-listed as a Red; There's gardens named for Lansbury, Laski, Shaw, For Priestley, Davie Kirkwood, AJ Cook And half the class of 1924 (Though fans of Ramsay Mac are out of luck), The Webbs, George Loveless, Henderson, Will Thome, MacMillan, Maggie Bondfield, Stafford Cripps, Bright, star-lit heralds of the coming dawn Now clouded by the mid-day sun's eclipse. What chance in seventy years of Milburn Mews? Of Darling Drive, Blair Boulevard, Third Way? Will Present Prospect smoke with Bar-B-Qs? Or Mandy Mansions crumble and decay? Does Crony Court, Straw Street or Campbell Crescent Sound like the kind of place you'd like to dwell? Will PFI-built homes be obsolescent, Which first-time Byers find they cannot sell?

We mark our passage through this world with names Like moon-light pebbles on the forest track; Like children lost within a wood, such games Enable us to know the journey back. But when the crusts of comfort all are eaten We have to cut a path between the trees, And promises of sugar cannot sweeten The story of the forests refugees. You'd think by now we'd recognise the plot: The hungry man who leaves his kids for dead, The little boy who's fattened for the pot, The barefoot girt who bakes the witch's bread. Though long-imagined paths are worn and old It doesn't mean they cant be any good; As long as tales of justice go untold The children will stay lost inside the wood. And as this heartless world's opinion hardens Grand Narratives like that which once inspired The builders who laid William Morris Gardens Need telling once again, for even tired And weary runners know you cant survive If you believe that you are all atone, Or that, as you are carried past mile five, Your aching legs are only flesh and bone.