Going Back to the Old School

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Ian

More updates on the progress of my old school as it slowly returns to nature. All photos by Caroline Toomey.

This land is owned

This grass is green

This paint is blue

This woodwork block

This soccer pitch

Filed under: photography | Tagged: change, legacy, post-industrial, progress, regeneration, renewal, transition | 1 Comment »

Impression of a Man (Poem) Blue Sky Thinking

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Ian

Blue Sky Dissected by Telephone Cable

Impression of a Man

He never saw it coming, never moved.

A JCB reversed right over him,

But the ground was soft and gave way

So he was pressed down,

Survived with minor bruising

And a sore back for weeks.

Some joker filled the hollow with concrete, let it set,

Lifted out a spread-eagled statue like a thief,

Painted on a smile for a bet,

Then stood it in the bar

For when he arrived,

Still shaking like a leaf.

It was a laugh.

A slap on the back

For those who saw it,

Those who wept.

Next day,

Behind the same JCB,

Someone pushed in its way,

The driver finding this unfunny.

First published Yellow Crane 4, Winter 1995/6

Filed under: Arts, photography, Poem | Tagged: change, legacy, post-industrial, progress, regeneration, renewal, transition | Leave a Comment »

Think Nothing Of It (Waiting for Miracles)

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Ian

Bird Hide Number 2, Brownsea Island – Waiting For Miracles

Think Nothing Of It

My first job

Was to clear away

A mountain of concrete

That accumulated.

I chipped with a pick

Making sparks

With the tip

Of the sharp, pointed prong.

After two days

A bird could have made

A greater impression.

But somehow, someone noticed my struggle,

Coming over to lever

The lot off the ground,

And into a barrow.

I should have started at the base.

I shouldn’t have blunted the pick.

They said: Think nothing of it.

First published in Iota 45, Autumn 1999

Filed under: Arts, photography, Poem, poetry | Tagged: barriers, change, division, legacy, progress, regeneration, renewal, transition | Leave a Comment »

Tacoma Narrows Syndrome (Poem) 1000 Yards; Or So (John Darwell)

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Ian

“The river marks a boundary between the city and the arable (farm) lands and is not only a favourite spot for the dumping and burning of stolen cars or for junkies to hang out; but is also used by dog walkers (myself included) and as an adventure playground for the local kids. For many it is invisible, a non-place passed by on the way to greater treasures in the city or the countryside real and as such becomes its own place free of any expectations of ever being more than it is.” John Darwell

Photograph reproduced by kind permission John Darwell.com

Tacoma Narrows Syndrome

A price was put
On every word.
He went away
And saved a fortune.

He used the pipe
To cross the river,
Slipped one day
And never recovered.

They built a bridge
So dangerous,
That thousands came
To have a go on it.

He came to say
The bridge was deadly,
But they’d already
Reached the other side.

Yellow Crane 8, Winter 1996/7

Devonport Leat, Dartmoor, England

Filed under: Arts, photography, Poem, poetry | Tagged: change, legacy, post-industrial, progress, regeneration, renewal, transition | Leave a Comment »

Invoice Department – Poem (Working Lives by John Darwell)

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Ian

Raddick Plantation, Dartmoor, England by Ian D Smith

Invoice Department

The building was decaying.

A room full of coffee-grinder calculators

Was destined for museums

Doing the twentieth century.

The man who kept

The toilet stocked with toilet rolls

Was tipping people off

About the coming computers.

I laboured on with the old system

As gardener after gardener

Whose invoices had been ditched,

Rang to complain.

The boss figured in December nothing grows,

So no one got a penny,

Except for the small guys—

A couple of grand

One Christmas eve

To a weed-trimmer in Neasden.

No questions asked and no PCs,

Just gravity taking the big guns

To the bottom of the in-tray.

Lateral Moves 24, 1999

1984-86 “A look at the clothing manufacturing industries around Stockport and South Manchester.” By John Darwell
Commissioned by Stockport Museums and Art Gallery Service.

Photograph reproduced by kind permission John Darwell.com.

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A34 Poems – Regeneration (by John Darwell)

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Ian

1988-90 The closure of one of Sheffield’s largest steel works and the redevelopment of the surrounding area. Photograph by John Darwell
Commissioned by Untitled Gallery, Sheffield.

A34 Poems

Knuckleised by alopecia
And growing hard to employ,
All roads led south for him.
Lo-and-behold, a pot of gold
At the end of the A34
Running on Cheltenham turf-
You can grow a lovely asparagus there.

He chose it for luck, stretching out
Before him like a vapour trail, the A34,
Magic-markered on his old map
But splattered with short-lived cities.
The ancient route south, hard
To follow in places and tough
Keeping sheep together-thirsty work.

Works Unit Only, Relief Road blues.
Tiredness Can Kill. Take a Break!,
Takes a leak in a Little Chef, glad
To be back inside before the engine cools,
Glowing in a lay-by for sandwiches
Leaving a tin-foil nugget.

“Her hair was thick with many a curl
That cluster’d round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad.”

Proposed by-pass Newbury-a flash
In the woods and Wordsworth’s children
Wave from a tree-branch
Laughing, cooking under a bender.
He joins them for kidney bean curry,
Returns to his bastardised rattler
That won’t start.

“Tell us Johnny, do,
Where all this long night you have been,
What you have heard, what you have seen.”

Sink estate. South shore.
He’s grimly learning permanence from the sea
In the seat of a Cortina
Reading the cross-channel ferry
Timetable, grounded.

Yellow Crane 4, Winter 1995/6

Sheffield, 1988-90 Photograph by John Darwell

Photographs reproduced by kind permission John Darwell.com.

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How They Looked at the Sun (Story)

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Ian

Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station and the Manchester Ship Canal by John Darwell

How They Looked at the Sun

Back at the apartment he watched her looking down on the square where the good-looking men peddled lighters as though they were keeping some ancient tradition going. Those lighters wouldn’t last a day and they never sold any. He thought they ought to try selling something useful once in a while but the tourist board paid them to be there to give the old town character and they hadn’t the motivation. It was all faked for the tourists. He told her it was all faked but she watched all the same.

He shook his head. He’d had a great holiday. He’d had a great time all round but his head hurt. A long time ago, the same jabbing headache came on after flying a kite for the children so he knew that staring at the sun caused it.

But the children were no longer children. All the same, he’d had a good run for his money. He’d worked hard all his life. They both had.

She closed the shutters to make the place dark for him. He needed plenty of sleep. They both did.

“Looking at the sun burns the eyes permanently. If it keeps on hurting, see a doctor.”

“Sure.”

He’d fallen asleep with his mouth open, his head tilted back like she’d told him not to. He’d enjoyed baking until his head felt like bursting and his eyes hurt. He’d been thinking how long it took the sun to travel there.

She scraped a dining room chair across the tiled floor. The noise of the chair went right through him like a kebab stick. He was sure she did it on purpose. She said she’d talked to the man who worked on the beach. The man’s eyes had been burned by the sun. She said his pupils were jammed shut and they wouldn’t open in the dark. He couldn’t go indoors because he couldn’t see in the dim light.

“He’s no good for anything except finding deckchairs on a beach.”

She sat down. She’d been pretty good about it, the way they were going to do what they had to do. He was amazed how resigned she was as though the sense of futility had been under the surface waiting to claim her. He remembered how dying soldiers turned to stare at the sun.

First published Eclectica Jan/Feb 2006