by Barry Tebb
AGAINST THE GRAIN
“Oxford be silent, I this truth must write
Leeds hath for rarities undone thee quite.”
; William Dawson of Hackney, Nov.7th 1704
“The repressed becomes the poem”
Louise Bogan
1
Well it’s Friday the thirteenth
So I’d better begin with luck
As I prepare for a journey to
The north, the place where I began
And I was lucky even before I
Was born for the red-hot shrapnel fell
And missed my mother by an inch
As she walked through the Blitz
In Bradford in nineteen forty-one.
Sydney Graham this poem is for you,
Although we never met, your feet
Have walked on the waters of poetic faith,
Hold out a hand for me to grasp,
A net to catch the dancing reflections
Of the midnight stars and smooth
The green tongue of the seawave
When it speaks to me as I slide
From my mother’s turning side.
For years I lived in the gardens
Of fire and flames robed time in
Memory and desire, icicles climbed
Six inches up the kitchen window
Then six inches down and six feet
Of snow lay against the POW’s as they
Marched with hefted shovels from
Knostrop’s cottage camp with curling
Smoke signalling from crooked stacks.
2
Yards from where I lay Hendry and
Moore sat in their attic conceiving
The Apocalypse and my natal stars
Were their ineffable words.
Shut off the telephone, I hear
Another bell, it is Saint Hilda’s
Tinny tone, one note repeated, tolling
Birth and death and all that lies
Between, insistent, punitive, breaking
The Sabbath’s silence and the bell
Rope like a hangman’s noose, hymnals
Like tawses, incense like choking fog
The procession to the altar a parade
Of the dead and God was over the road
In the pink and blue threaded lupins
Massed behind the rusted padlock of
The gate to the unused path by the
Bridge over the railway.
I began this prayer of poetry in poverty
And this never-ending song started in silence
After the bells quietened and Sunday was in
Church or still in bed as I watched the tusky
Growing in the fecund darkness. The shed was
Holy, warm and in wonder I felt it move and
On my scooter I flew over the holy stones of
Jerusalem the Golden.
My wide eyes wandered over the Aire at the
Coal barges as they snaked beneath the bridge
In black tarpaulin shrouds and clouds of steam
Hissed from Easy Road Laundry, the breaths of a
Monster, half man, half machine, the terrifying
Figures in a dream and on the Empire’s stage
I saw Doctor Wonder’s Mechanical Robot raise
An axe and chop in half his master and the two
Halves haunted me always, their fusion and
Diffusion some terrible portent to meet me
In darkness and in dreams.
3
Luck, where did I leave you?
By the paddling pool in Eastend Park,
In the seawave as I explored the green
Springs of my birth, in the bare hedges
Of Knostrop where I began this present
Pilgrimage by Joyce Summersgill’s side
As she ran from the shouting man and in
Disarray began this never-ending flight
And still at fifty-four I run, I know not
Why or where and death cannot be far
From this half-open door.
For luck I count each cobble, there’s enough
Beneath the ginnel to take a breath
And that’s the luck I need to live on.
In the dark I saw a spark light up and
Whirl and twirl around my head and as it hissed
I drew in silver a lucky seven.
4
Spender, Stephen, Sir,
Whichever name you
Now prefer, it is
Irrelevant, you’re
Dead and but a one
Or two poem man I
Fear. High and clear
I hear your voice
Caressing Rilke’s
Elegies, relating
Them to liberty,
Of which you had so
Little, shackled as you were
To your poetic chair.
In Leeds I listened
To your praise
Of famous men,
A famous man yourself
Your own voice drowned
By London’s roar.
5
Leeds Town Hall’s portico
Is grand and grander
It grows with money
And with prose but still
I see in the rain and
Dark the Ritz that’s
Boarded up, its exquisite
Carved fa?ade crumbling
Its royal lions weeping
Its stone flowers fading.
The Scala, too, is gone
Even the street
Where it stood,
Only the river
And the canal
Are untouched
In their flow.
By the Office Lock
I go at dawn, ‘Total Anarchy’
Is moored by ‘Milly Molly Mandy’
In perfect rhythm
A man cycles on the towpath
His dog on a lead
Running beside,
They do not notice me
Or falter in their stride.
6
At dawn in Leeds
I was lost
Once I had left
The lock
Car park, office block,
Grand hotel looming
And no path
But then I found
Back Lane, every
Window blocked,
Every inch cobbled,
A road to nowhere
Built a hundred
Years ago.
I found a gas lamp
Anchored to a corner
Rusty and forgotten
In the glare
Of the million watt
Yorkshire Electricity
Tower of Steel for
The new museum
‘Guns before butter’
And I wonder,
Christian Visionary Poet
Or Regional Romantic
Is there any longer
A place in this city
For me?
7
By Kirkgate Market
Alone at night
I wandered
The Parish Church’s
Stone lit by a
Hundred bulbs but
Its graveyard
Shifted aside.
Where are the banked
Stones of the dead?
Behind screens they raised
Their bones and counted
Their skulls and moved
Them in barrows.
The railway’s banks
Are buttressed with the
Moved memorial stones
The diggers wore sacking
Over their faces and
Burned their shovels.
8
Every garden and park
Is a hypothesis for God
When I hear a distant buzz
I cannot tell if it is
A bee or saw.
That is what we must
Decide, patterned being
Or random chance, God
Or nothing, your choice
And mine.
9
The caf? by the lake was closed
But when I asked they opened.
Was it God or chance made hearts
Beat like a butterfly’s wing
In January cold?
Good and bad are choice not chance
At sixteen I decided to be a poet,
Writing another’s love poems,
Earning my first praise. My verses
Were appalling until I learned
From Eliot and Alvarez; praise
Where praise is due.
10
The caf? staff are chatting in subdued tones,
Wearing white, wondering if they’ll survive
The winter, so do I; at fifty-four I must decide
For poetry, my sons educated just, one at Balliol
One at the Royal College, I have cast my lot
With Lady Luck, I own no property but a book.
In Roundhay’s Tropical World Nepalese Trumpets
Glow in red and yellow like mendicant priests,
The waterfall roars like Lodore and I am more
Myself here than anywhere.
11
The morning sun is melting
The dome of Leeds Town Hall,
Frost on Kirkstall Abbey stone
Is falling into the Aire;
At fifty-four my dreams
Have ceased, the bowling green
At Eastend Park has gone;
The trams have stopped,
The purple gondola with
Gold sashes locked in a museum;
Jeannie has gone and Chris
And Margaret and Kirkgate
Market’s towers are in flames
Of ice and snow on Magdalen
Bridge with two figures in the
Deer Park wandering in white
Flurries of February dusk.
12
James Fenton you are King
Of Oxford Poetry and Seamus
Heaney holds the Laureate’s Crown
With sceptre and with gown,
The carved heads have grown
On grey Sheldonian stone.
The railings on the ramparts
On York Wall held my breath
As I walked my ten year old
Spirit in rain and sun, wind
Willing me on while no one knew
Where I had gone.
13
With every car alarm
I hear the air raid
Siren’s song, Waterloo Road’s
Bomb hole big enough to hold
A bus that could not stop;
Maurice the butcher gave a
Crayoning book I filled in
Until the All Clear went;
I spent a childhood on
The spaces of Red Riding
Hood’s cloak and the gap
Between the Wolf’s teeth
I crayoned in with crimson.
14
Ellerby Lane School stood
At the hill top, over the
Hollows, its onion dome and
Green railings grieved for the
Abandoned streets of memory;
Only Bridgefield Place remained
With the caf? and I was left
To wander the Hollows searching
The stones to find the flowers
Of history and buttercups
Chinned my shadow; doorposts
Askew with worn steps
Leading nowhere.
15
My father’s grey dressing
Gown has gone, his hat
And gloves are lost,
The bus he waited for
No longer runs from
The Bridgefield down the
Hill past the Hollows
Ellerby Lane School is a
Shadow on a snapshot
With me sitting on a car
Bonnet by Bayford’s yard,
Holding a dying pup.
16
The aunt I loved the
Best was worst of all;
She slept away the war
With every man she knew
While Uncle Jack played
Tanks in Africa and learned
Pontoon at Alamein and then
Broke every window pane on
His return and Grandad
Nicky said, “Decide to go
Or keep your bride” and
Pride lost that day
And Lucifer lay low
And six children grew
In Rough Lea by the
Poplar’s side and when I
Shared their meal; it was
A feast of love and Auntie
Betty smiled as I sat
Beside her on the bench
“There’s always room for
One more inside” and I went along
For the ride.
17
Ride-a-cock horse to
Roundhay Park where
The tram terminus still
Stands, a bay with poles
Of steel too tall and
Strong to shift, between
The cobbles, tram lines
Lay buried, the upper
Deck is filled with the
Smoke of Capstan Full
Strength and nicotined
Fingers grasp threepenny
Workman’s returns and
“The Evening Post” is read
And rolled and slapped
On Uncle Arthur’s greasy
Overalls from Hudswell
Clarks where ‘Portmadoc’
And ‘Pride of the Glens’
Stand in the sheds, their
Giant wheel spokes true
To a thousandth of an inch.
18
The fire back is black
And blacker grows with
Black lead and a rose
In the flames is white
Hot in the heat to my
Heart beat as the hob
Swung in and out for
Father Triggear’s pot
Of tea, his enormous red
Calves towered above me
Like a crane, his High
Anglican voice boomed,
“You are a ha’penny short
Of your trip money, what
Am I supposed to do?”
With Father Mulcock
Your alter ego you
Cost me half a lifetime’s faith,
“Not to know who accompanied Christ
Is ignorance worthy of chastisement.”
19
The dray wheels rolled
Over the ruts, the cobbles
Shone in the frost,
Standish’s woodyard
Burned in the Siege of Troy,
The ramparts of Eastend Park
Were lost when the great
Park gates crashed down.
I left my grandfather’s
Cabin trunk on the last
Bus to Crossgreen and
I put my hand between
The rusted gates to touch
The last lupin of Knostrop
Withering on its stem.
20
The bridge to nowhere
Stands in the abandoned goodsyard
With the weighbridge I danced on
Still holding me between
Its sheets of steel.
The weighbridge office is
Deserted, pink paint peeling,
Telephones ripped from
The wall, worn desks on
Their side, creosoted
Palings gone, our last
Game of cricket played.
21
The last coal wagon
Has gone to the tower
At Nevill Hill to be
Hauled high and drenched
And dropped from the sky.
22
Every house-row would
Glow with red and
Chiaroscuro, walls
Polished by the passage
Of a thousand souls.
The binyards were
White with winter,
Every gable end’s
Attic window
Waited and watched.
The locked petrol
Pumps drew us.
We somersaulted
Over the railings
At dusk.
“Farmer, farmer
May I cross
Your golden fields?”
23
My first love was Margaret Gardiner
No matter how many hours
We were together I lay in bed
Unable to recollect the wan
Beauty of her face.
Half a century later
I cry at the realization,
My first, my only love.
I remember the rapid patter
Of her laceless runners
Over the hot pavements
Of our sweetheart summers,
Her thin, washed-out
Flower-patterned frock,
Her father in Armley Gaol,
Her mother’s eight hour shifts
Slicing meat in Redmond’s
Pork-butchers’ basement.
Every night her older sister
Went to the pictures or the Mecca
While we sat on the pavement
Making up stories.
24
I dream of the Aire
By the suspension bridge
Over the sparkling waters
Of a long gone summer night
Where Margaret’s voice is calling,
“I am here, I am waiting.”
After forty years her voice,
Pure and clear
As I ran and bounded
Scattering the waters’
Rainbows of diamonds.
And the streets were
As they had been
Never and always
Bathed in perpetual sunlight
With no mothers to call us
No darkness falling
The light of twilight
Unending.
25
How she could encompass me
In her own fragility.
In forty years I have
Never encountered
The purity of
Margaret’s girlhood
I have often wondered
What my sexual initiation
With her would have
Been like.
Love that moves mountains
Moves away the veil
Of the years and I see her
At sixteen, elf-like still,
Her breasts open to my caress,
Her vagina to my tongue, her eyes
Stars in the continuing green,
Her delicate hands holding me
And guiding me inside her,
Freeing me, O freeing me from
The perpetual cold of my mother’s
Love and how all my poems would
Have been for Margaret,
O for Margaret.
26
Margaret hung
And hovered
Like a bird
In endless sky
Over Embsay or
Barden Fell.
She has not moved
In forty years
Her stillness
The fragile beauty
Of her face
Her smile
Is with me
Still, my first
Poem and I am
Writing it
Forty years on,
It cannot end
And has hardly
Begun.
27
Margaret’s voice
Pure and clear
“I am here,
I am waiting”
Murillo painted
The steps down
To the Aire, her
Ragged dress, my
Torn trousers, her
Hair a crown of
Crystal.
Her eyes shone
Her tongue was
In my ear
Twilight kept on
With no mothers
To call us
Margaret, wherever
You are, you are
More beautiful
Than the stars.
28
Together we stood
In the blacksmith’s
Dooryard, lilac
In her hair
And I had
Put it there.
The anvil was Gretna,
The glowing shoe our ring,
The clang the smith made
Sprayed white stars
Round the hem
On the veil
Of her gown.
Near the forge
On Hunslet Road
A junkshop window
With a wooden stereoscope
Showed an Edwardian
Beach, Margaret and I
Hand-in-hand walked
Through the lens
And lay on the sand.
29
The 3D film
Came to ‘The Princess’
And when the huge
Hypodermic lunged
From the screen
Margaret clutched
At me convulsively.
The feast at
Hunslet Moor
Roared its music
Into the night
We passed over
The bridge out
Of sight of
The streets, past
Hudswell Clark’s
Giant doors, past
The war day-nursery
We stopped at
The railway crossing
At the wheel
Which could not
Be turned and
Tried to turn it,
The huge steel rim
Shone, the crossing
Gates fast closed,
The line unused
For fifty years.
The moor stretched
Away to the feast’s
Imbroglio of giant
Wheels and ghost-rides,
Shies and penny-runs
And carousels.
30
We rose in a gondola
Holding hands under
A canopy of steel.
Leeds lay before us
The wind baffled our cheeks
The gondola stopped
In its arc.
In the midnight car
We kissed and you
Drew my hand
To the bud
Of your breast
And touched
Your lip
With a finger-tip.
31
On the way home
You had to wee
And told me not
To watch but
Closed your eyes
As you hitched
Up your dress.
At the end of
Falmouth Terrace
Under your mother’s
Eye gravely you
Kissed me good-night.
32
On a Holy Day of Obligation
I went with Margaret up
The hill to Mount St. Mary’s,
The path was rough and little
Used, her black runners had holes,
Her ankles were bare, she wore a
Washed-out flower-patterned frock.
33
You wore a torn scarf
Over your hair
As we sat in the dark
Square of the church,
The footsteps of penitents
Echoing, Christ bleeding,
Candles burning, the confessionals
Closed.
34
In the attic were a hundred pre-war
‘Picture Posts’ with sepia prints
Of Boer War soldiers and pyramids
Of cannon balls stacked by their gun:
“Make war, not love”, the motto said,
Hanging over the double bed
And I was bred to defeat
As every growling dog knows
But no child in the streets
Ever fought another,
We were all everyone’s
Sister or brother,
Whenever anyone fell
There was always someone
Near to kiss you better.
And when I was younger
Auntie Nellie took me
Once a week to Leeds
For sweets in the County
Arcade paved with mosaics
Like a Roman forum, the shop
That sold penny rolls of
Swizzles in rainbow colours
Was always our first call
And our last was milk and
Angel cake at Marks and Sparks.
33
Behind the streets
Lay the cooper’s yard
The drays of empty barrels
Coming and going all day
At dusk there was quiet
In the streets, the gas-lamps
Flickered and flared as
We stared at the mantel
As by magic it flamed
And glowed as light flowed
Into the shadows.
The sides of the lamps
Were slides of mirror glass
And as we passed
There seemed to be a spirit
Guarding us.
34
We drew our hop-scotch
Squares in rainbow chalks
And in the binyards
Played at hide and seek:
When I found Margaret
I had the right to kiss her
How I miss her forty years on,
Too much in love for love,
And now our time is gone.
35
Margaret, the streets are weeping at midnight,
Over the suspension bridge the traffic flow is
Heavy as a haemorrhage, the Falmouths lie buried
Under sixteen feet of stone, Knostrop is gone,
Mount St. Mary’s boarded up.
Why does your image haunt me
Night and day?
Lank February grass
Pale lemon straw
The colour of your hair
Your voice in dreams
“I am here, I am waiting.”
36
Margaret, you are waking this February morning
When Leeds is clear and cold, the ‘Valentines’ Fair
Is still, the carousels closed, the great wheel’s tip
Has stopped above the Town Hall clock, Spencer Place
Has nothing to say but “Remember Bloody Sunday”,
Bridgefield Place is split in two, cobbles on both
Sides of the mesh fence, half to a wireworks, half
To a caf?; walk with me by the Aire’s side, past
A dipping pride of swans and find the path is
Blocked on every side.
37
I sit alone drinking my coffee, as once Picasso
Sat in a Sheffield transport caf? and drew the
Dove of Peace on a paper handkerchief;
The chef framed it and set it over the hatch
But not even the Master’s touch held back the
Developer’s putsch and who listens to a poet?
38
Mount St. Mary’s high on the hill watches over
Leeds Nine but it is closed and still, stained
Glass windows smashed, holes in the roof, the
Great doors locked, the Virgin weeping.
Night has come to Leeds, the carnival is bright
With neon lights outlining every stall and carousel,
The Civic Hall is strung with a thousand bulbs,
On Beeston Hill I hold the city in my arms.
39
An iridescent car of fire
Is drawn across the winter sky
From the gates of heaven to Mount St. Mary’s;
On Beeston Hill a haptic wind raises
The ghosts of splayed dead leaves
And light through chandeliers glows
In a thousand shades, pale carousels
In mystic light begin to turn: we take
Our places for the ride and you are
Ten and I am twelve, your hair is blown
And blown again.
40
The bridge over the Aire
Should have had a portcullis
And a tollgate at Crossgreen
To keep safe all in between:
In the world that space
Is the only one secure for me
The only heaven that will ever be
In life and art and memory.
41
The six streets came straight
Back against a wall to the
Goodsyard, against a fence,
Against the windowed wall
Of the tall black block of
Offices marked ‘LMS’, with a
Huge clock and forecourt where
Drays and lorries
Rushed and loaded and turned.
42
The foremen wore black jackets
With silver buttons and brass
Watch chains decked their waistcoats;
They thumbed winders the size of burrs
To open watch faces, clipped wire
Spectacles over their ears, humming and
Hawing and blowing their noses into
Huge white handkerchiefs and set pint mugs
On the wall, not drinking but supping, wetting
Their whiskers and drying them off
On braided sleeves.
43
Erich Fromm you’d know what I mean,
The blow was not my cold mother but the move
From the streets and Bruno Bettleheim,
Your idea of mataplets would fit
Margaret and me to a tee.
44
My father you were deaf, then dead,
Hurling the words you could not hear
Against a wall of silence as with these
Words I try to heal you.
Father, hear me; in your eyes I saw a gleam,
A glint, the shadow of a splint of light,
The jaunting-cart as a boy
You had a lift to school in.
45
My dream of Lincoln Cathedral,
The stone effigy of a knight in repose
With the words upon his tomb:
“Come here and you will discover
The secrets of your ancestry”
But still I did not go, nor to the
Dairy in Northampton where they
Washed the floors in milk each
Afternoon in the cool silence,
The butter-making done, milk in the
Tall, chiming churns rolled onto the
Platform by the railway.
46
I began my poetry on a Woolworth’s’ pad
Where a lily floated on the cover
In green and white and red.
I wrote to Margaret my first letter
From the breakwater lined with seaweed
Where I let my great pink beachball
Float out beyond recovery
I was so lonely there.
47
No one could
Reach me
Or touch me
Or teach me;
Grief that you
Were not
With me.
48
My recurring dream was the garden of Monet,
Lillies, a bridge and a stream; I called them
My ‘Princess Margaret dreams’, your name always
There, your shadow among the shades.
49
‘The Princess’ cinema with its Saturday matin?es
And you, Margaret, queen of my ten year old heart,
Those images fused to make the dreams -
I was too obtuse to realize.
50
Margaret I want
To know where you
Are, near or far
By the town hall clock
Or distant as a star
51
I have searched all the way down
From Jews’ Park to the Public Dispensary
Where they have painted the railings on the bridge
A rich vermilion, richer than rowan or port wine,
Richer even than the palette of Vermeer.
There is frost everywhere, holding together
The clamped benches in the garden for the blind,
Binding the branches of the shrubs sewn along
The path to the garden for the disabled.
I have touched the haptic stones, patterned
In the empty silence of Roundhay’s dawn,
The park stretching away in trees and mist
And morning frost.
52
Time after time
Time out of mind
I have searched for you,
Unending as my song
The search is going on.
53
They have washed the town hall walls and made new
The stones; Back Lane was demolished a week after I found it;
The gas lamp anchored to the wall is gone, the cobbles
Sold off, the steel base of an office block already raised.
Upper Accommodation Road no longer forks in two, one way
Had Deidre’s mother’s shop, with odds and ends, combs and
Cotton reels and hairgrips on cards; the road and the
Shop have gone and Deidre has died and on the other side
The Co-op is long gone where we got your mother’s
Shopping once a week from.
54
Sugarbag blue
I called the colour
Of your knickers
As you stood over
The basket
We struggled
Back with.
Your eyes reflected
The image of me at ten
In my tomato-red tee-shirt
Looking at you in your
Washed-out flower-patterned
Frock.
55
Margaret, Leeds is bound with fog
This Friday in late March, in search
Of you I went to Kirkstall where the
Monks once paced a passage underground
To the nunnery and in the museum
I walked the cobbled streets of memory.
56
They will place you in a sedan chair
Wearing your diadem of stars
And bear you everywhere, candles aloft
With gold light smoking in fluted stems
And gems of vine and ivy leaves
And columbine, O Margaret mine.
57
Margaret, the wind is howling
Round the edge of Bridgewater Place
Or the space where once it stood.
After forty years I remember
The first kiss I gave you
And most that you did not
Turn away or flinch or make
Conditions about any kisses
To follow but took my kiss
Simply as a gift.
58
It’s been a problem ever since
With everyone, no-one else was
So simple, always wanting more or
Less than I could give, when all
There was to follow was more of
The same but this is not meant
As a treatise on the epistemology
Of kissing but more on its
Metaphysics so sadly lacking.
59
You were the only girl who
Did not insist the conditions
Of kissing be written in tablets
Of stone, that I be not affianced
Elsewhere, be scrubbed to the bone,
Certified free of STD, solvent and
Holding a current contract of
Employment.
60
Margaret, I realize you had only
Yourself to offer, not a career prospect,
Mortgage partnership or pre-nuptial
Agreement, just your ten-year old self
Wearing a washed-out flower-patterned
Frock, navy-blue knickers and black
Laceless runners.
61
Equally poets at fifty-four don’t
Have that much going for them,
White hair and beard and bags under
My eyes but with some surprise I can
Still make love with passion.
62
I guessed you’d be a single parent
Like your mam, in a Seacroft tower
Block with lifts that don’t work and
Graffiti the nearest thing to poetry
And close to your grown up daughter
And her kids over on Whinmoor.
63
Arriving like that I must have
Given you a shock; of course you
Remembered me but time’s gone by
And why after all etcetera but I
Said to forget it, my visit instead
Of a letter, bringing out of the blue
Reams of poetry about you who never
Knew what became of me with my
Stories and dreams.
64
We sat and smoked through the evening
With no telephone to interrupt, just
The wind wailing round Seacroft Towers;
Your ex-brother-in-law’s ex-wife called
Round with a book but you told her to
Sling her hook and we sat on the worn couch
Counting the years with their bits of luck.
65
At midnight you said I’d have to stay
Night buses don’t run anymore anyway
And you didn’t give me a funny look
Or make anything out of anything, you
Just took off your top and asked me to
Unhook your bra, letting everything else
Fall to the floor.
66
Forty years went
Out of the window
Of the twenty-third floor
Of Seacroft Towers.
You had your ten
Year old smile and
I was holding your hand,
Walking the fields of Knostrop,
Dandelion crowns, threaded
Lupins and the forecourt
By the petrol pumps
Where I first kissed you.
67
When I kissed you again
It was forty years on,
I stroked your crystal hair
And your eyes shone.
When I put my tongue
Inside you, your body
Shook with all the tears
Of forty years.
68
“Don’t leave me again
I’ve not got another
Lifetime to lose, touch
My face with your hand,
Kiss me better.”
Making love again
Entering every orifice
With penis and tongue
We tried to heal and sweal
Away our pain, as it came
Again and again
And again.
- Share this Poem:
Last updated May 02, 2015