|
|
Cheltenham: a poem
Promenade #1
Every step holds memories
For me, this place is birthplace
And I am always alien.
It seems that all adventures
Here
Begin with the wurr and grind
Of cashpoints:
Money is Cheltenham,
Forever oiling it’s winding wheels.
Meeting ‘Crazy’ on North Street
A guy named ‘Crazy’,
Who drove trucks and drank
In my local -
Drank too much.
Now he talks with no one,
Wandering the streets,
Of his imaginary Cheltenham.
I smile across.
But he does not.
Remember me?
Or anyone else?
No, not since his wife left
And the mortgage defaulted,
The truck crunched up
Somewhere off the A4 something
Now he’s given pocket money,
Plenty of abuse,
A room in a hostel –
Sometimes the hospital,
But never his home.
I wave as he walks on, alone
High Street
On and on through
Designer fashion to household retainers,
Posh shops, posh frocks,
Tesco, Iceland, Tesco, Lidl.
On and on
In Cheltenham.
There’s a man in the Strand,
Always there
Standing in the same clothes,
Beard, odd socks, odd odd,
Doesn’t know it’s Sunday –
Doesn’t care.
‘Welcome to hell,’ he says
St James Street
On St James Street
Two inept men,
Trying to bump start a car.
I want to help -
In the name of poetry.
I do and it starts.
Damn near kills me
And I splutter off
To the sound of their singing Citroen.
‘Thanks,’ they shout
And I smile back
At our poetry in motion.
Walking to Whaddon Road
On Selkirk Gardens
I spy the floodlight giants,
These stations of the cross,
And I remember
That football doesn’t matter,
And I remember
Sometimes football’s all that matters.
Walking the self same streets
With my Dad,
Through the Beazer Homes League,
Midland Division,
To the Vauxhall Opal ‘fruit’ Cup
And beyond.
Cheltenham Town F.C. (Whaddon Road)
I am sat in Cotterill’s dugout,
Seeing the pitch as Manager.
The floor before strewn
In yesterdays tie-ups and chewing gum,
But it’s empty and it’s quiet,
I sense it waiting.
Stripped of a crowd
Only refuse remains –
I touch the goalposts
At each end
And remember Clive Walker,
That one-hundredth non-league goal.
Glorious,
Irrelevance,
Just something for the weekend,
Roll a cigarette and flick ash on the centre
Circle, anoint this,
Unholy church –
It’s Sunday and someone somewhere
Sings hymns.
But here in this
Unholy joy I remember
The chants of Jimmy Gough, Michael Duff,
The night ‘we’ won promotion,
The smell of Jamie Victory:
‘Oh! we can’t read and we can’t write,
But it don’t really matter,
‘Cause we all come from Cheltenhamshire
And we can drive a tractor...
Ooh aah, ooh aah,
Ooh aah, ooh aah,
Ooh aah you,
Who aah you,
Who are you,
Who are you!’
Remembering Larkin’s ‘cycle clips’,
I walk on ‘in awkward reverence’,
Of this modern day pagan love fest.
Pittville Circus
On and on past more old flats
And memories,
Albert Road,
Basement flat,
Had no light, but excellent parties.
And everyone’s doing Sunday things,
Clipping summer growth
From plants and hedgerows,
Cleaning the cars,
Basting the joints,
Moving in slow hung-over swaggers.
Winchcombe Street
And the sun begins to shine.
On a bench, an old man turns and smiles
And watches me write these very words,
His expression becoming blank
In the presence of my verse.
Promenade #2
Back in the Promenade there’s a busker,
Jazzing up Julie Andrews on guitar,
‘Just a few of my favourite things...’,
But he doesn’t smile.
Just plays and waits
For the penny to drop
In a hat with a hole,
Wonders where all the money goes.
I’ve seen him before,
Playing the ‘Deerhunter’ theme, sadly.
Regent Arcade
Every bubble holds a dream
And children learn fast
As every bubble bursts,
So they watch the Arcade clock,
Catching their dreams,
Exploding
Before their eyes,
Below the sparkling, spinning,
Five foot wooden trout.
The Bird Lady on High Street
The Bird Lady,
Pigeon petter,
Picks up the pieces of bread
Others left behind.
Feeds the swarms of flying beasts.
‘The Council calls ‘em
Rats with wings.’
Her favourite, ‘Percy,
Got no feet at all.’
And she hasn’t seen
His speckled breast in weeks.
She worries,
She feeds
And she thanks me,
‘For listening and not laughing.’
As two men swear and laugh at her,
Not listening, at safe distance.
In Cheltenham
Every step holds memories
For me, this place is birthplace
And I am still always alien.
Familiar faces haunt each street
And some stop to talk of times forgotten,
Some say nothing at all.
I breathe our air
And share in local viruses,
Eating our food
From local supermarkets,
Drinking from our reservoir
And adding to the sewerage,
Kicking up our dust,
Burying friends and family,
In our very own important local cemetery.
And laughing at the one-way system,
GCHQ,
And the ‘Eagle’ Edwards,
Cheltenham races,
Cheltenham racists,
‘Centre for the Cotswolds’,
Just another of many places.
Come to Cheltenham!
It’s...
The End
Written and performed for Cheltenham Festival of Literature's
'Words on Walkabout', Sunday 22nd October 2000.
On meeting the Bird Lady in January 2001
In cold suffocated avenues
The birds forget to sing,
But steal passing morsels
Of bread left unattended.
‘Percy’, alas, is dead.
© Jon Andriessen
2000/2001
Back to top
|
