Dave Hill
Today on the train
We passed a small garage called
Dave Hill Motors
I wonder if that's the same Dave Hill
Who wore those dangly earrings
In Slade?
At the height of his fame
Dave Hill bought a big house
(as pop stars did in those days)
not realising
it was next door to a girl's school
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Seeing Jack Round Corners (1)
I’m lying in bed on damp sheets
Thinking back forty years
Forty years!
And what am I doing forty years on?
It’s nineteen sixty five.
I slip from the bedroom.
Everywhere is too quiet.
The white tiles in the bathroom
And the strange light.
My half reflection is almost yellow.
My pee is almost orange.
Isn’t it neat the way it hits the water like that?
Listen, I am nine.
Nine year olds think like that.
At least I did.
Still do sometimes.
I wander into Mum’s room.
It’s empty.
The eiderdown is heaped on the floorboards.
The bed is bare.
In the centre of the white sheet is a pool of blood.
I think, you could hang the sheet from the window
Like the flag of a new country.
I’m nine.
That’s what I thought.
I’m in the kitchen.
It’s unusually tidy.
There are no crumbs on the table.
The back door is locked and there’s no sign of the key.
How did I feel?
Was I scared?
I can’t remember.
Maybe it was like a game.
I’m in the sitting room.
The ash trays are full.
The sun is streaming through the curtain crack
Like a cinema.
You can see the sunbeams.
You can see dust boats gliding along them.
My heart is thumping.
I sit and watch the thin strip of sunlight
And wonder what to do.
There’s a banging on the door.
I peek through the curtain crack.
Two policemen are standing on the step.
I go back into the bedroom and get dressed.
I wonder when I wet my pyjamas.
I put them in the linen basket in Mum’s room.
Then I sit on the bed and wait.
Thinking back forty years
Forty years!
And what am I doing forty years on?
It’s nineteen sixty five.
I slip from the bedroom.
Everywhere is too quiet.
The white tiles in the bathroom
And the strange light.
My half reflection is almost yellow.
My pee is almost orange.
Isn’t it neat the way it hits the water like that?
Listen, I am nine.
Nine year olds think like that.
At least I did.
Still do sometimes.
I wander into Mum’s room.
It’s empty.
The eiderdown is heaped on the floorboards.
The bed is bare.
In the centre of the white sheet is a pool of blood.
I think, you could hang the sheet from the window
Like the flag of a new country.
I’m nine.
That’s what I thought.
I’m in the kitchen.
It’s unusually tidy.
There are no crumbs on the table.
The back door is locked and there’s no sign of the key.
How did I feel?
Was I scared?
I can’t remember.
Maybe it was like a game.
I’m in the sitting room.
The ash trays are full.
The sun is streaming through the curtain crack
Like a cinema.
You can see the sunbeams.
You can see dust boats gliding along them.
My heart is thumping.
I sit and watch the thin strip of sunlight
And wonder what to do.
There’s a banging on the door.
I peek through the curtain crack.
Two policemen are standing on the step.
I go back into the bedroom and get dressed.
I wonder when I wet my pyjamas.
I put them in the linen basket in Mum’s room.
Then I sit on the bed and wait.
A Man Runs For A Train
A man runs for a train at Etchingham, in East Sussex. The train starts as the man clambers aboard and tumbles into a seat. His fellow passengers applaud him and make encouraging remarks.
Minutes later a guard appears. His voice betrays his anger. He takes his job very seriously. Who jumped aboard the train at the station when the train was moving? he asks.
Everyone looks blank. Everyone shrugs. No one in this carriage, mate, says a man in a yellow jacket. You must have imagined it.
After the guard has gone the yellow-jacket man gives the late passenger a small badge. The print is tiny, though, and, what with the motion of the train, the lack of light and my poor eyesight, It’s impossible to read from where I’m sitting.
Minutes later a guard appears. His voice betrays his anger. He takes his job very seriously. Who jumped aboard the train at the station when the train was moving? he asks.
Everyone looks blank. Everyone shrugs. No one in this carriage, mate, says a man in a yellow jacket. You must have imagined it.
After the guard has gone the yellow-jacket man gives the late passenger a small badge. The print is tiny, though, and, what with the motion of the train, the lack of light and my poor eyesight, It’s impossible to read from where I’m sitting.
A Length of Wine
I like wine with a length on the finish. A furlong or two. Plummy
and spicy with a sweet lemon note, a quaver, maybe,
a demi-semi quaver.
And as it slides down the throat it might give a hint, a nudge
of grape.
Just the Ticket
I was composing a sonnet
In the ticket office queue
When she pushed past me
As rude people do
Hurry! She commanded
The ticket office man
A single to London
As fast as you can.
He slowed down a touch
A smidgeon, a wink,
Had a little scratch
Had a little think
She caught the fast train
Which hurtled out of town
At breakneck speed
Until it leapt with one bound
From the track at Hayward’s Heath
Singing, I am a plane
And buried itself
into a slow goods train
And we waited at the signals
And I sat and watched the rain
And turned my attention
To composing a quatrain
In the ticket office queue
When she pushed past me
As rude people do
Hurry! She commanded
The ticket office man
A single to London
As fast as you can.
He slowed down a touch
A smidgeon, a wink,
Had a little scratch
Had a little think
She caught the fast train
Which hurtled out of town
At breakneck speed
Until it leapt with one bound
From the track at Hayward’s Heath
Singing, I am a plane
And buried itself
into a slow goods train
And we waited at the signals
And I sat and watched the rain
And turned my attention
To composing a quatrain
Top Five Poetry Books
1 Verse and Worse Ed. Arnold Silcock.
2 selected poems – e.e.cummings.
3 The Mersey Sound – McGough, Henri and Patten
4 Blue Coffee – Adrian Mitchell
5 Selected Poems – Simon Armitage
2 selected poems – e.e.cummings.
3 The Mersey Sound – McGough, Henri and Patten
4 Blue Coffee – Adrian Mitchell
5 Selected Poems – Simon Armitage
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
The Orange Band Dream
We are at school. Possibly college. It's a bit like a staff room.
A young woman has come back to see us.
We promise to visit her studio.
On the TV is a large band with thirty or so players.
They are playing jazz which is very blues influenced.
Low in the mix are trumpets and trombones.
The band are wearing bright orange uniforms.
The music is in the background of the dream.
Then they are playing a very long, bluesy, almost dirgy piece.
Someone wants to change the channel.
That's okay, I say.
Although I'm obviously watching and enjoying it.
The band finish playing. They get up and leave the room. The same room we are all in.
I am standing in the doorway and they shuffle past me.
The camera follows them
and they leave by the back of the building.
It looks like America. Possibly San Francisco in the 30s
It is a bus depot.
They are bus drivers.
The foreman hurries them on to buses, three at a time.
They drive away.
I'm incredibly moved and close to tears.
A young woman has come back to see us.
We promise to visit her studio.
On the TV is a large band with thirty or so players.
They are playing jazz which is very blues influenced.
Low in the mix are trumpets and trombones.
The band are wearing bright orange uniforms.
The music is in the background of the dream.
Then they are playing a very long, bluesy, almost dirgy piece.
Someone wants to change the channel.
That's okay, I say.
Although I'm obviously watching and enjoying it.
The band finish playing. They get up and leave the room. The same room we are all in.
I am standing in the doorway and they shuffle past me.
The camera follows them
and they leave by the back of the building.
It looks like America. Possibly San Francisco in the 30s
It is a bus depot.
They are bus drivers.
The foreman hurries them on to buses, three at a time.
They drive away.
I'm incredibly moved and close to tears.
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