XIII. Sights, sounds, etc
SALT-CELLAR RAINBOWS
When you moved the salt-cellar, made of cut-glass,
over the kitchen walls and ceiling went spots
of the rainbow. A touch made them, as one, pass
on to the new place, over picture and door,
switch and fly-catcher. Those glowing bodiless dots,
butterfly-wisps, didn't care where they had to alight,
jumping as close as the teapot, as far as
the black coalbox outside, but they kept their flight
formation, strict division as voyagers
across random irrelevance, as pretence
irreality, fantasy, across sense.
IRIDESCENCE (I)
Just by moving the salt-cellar with my own
hand, the pattern of scattered rainbows would shift
where I wanted it to. The record had shown
a dull black till I looked at it sideways:
I made shot silk of plastic. Petrol would drift
down the gutter its topaz-amethyst glaze:
only stirring it spoiled it. The stagnant ditch
was all lacquered with saffron-sapphire: with care
you could craze a mosaic over it till rich
pavings lay between tin-cans. But even there
colours went if the light was looked at askew.
Iridescence depends on your point of view.
MIRROR TO MIRROR
Put two mirrors to face each other. There'd be
me as a Chinese snake or all the banners
in a curving procession, pictures of me
coming from nowhere miles away out of green
ocean mist. Was as if some quick enchanter's
wand had gone poking a hole in the real scene
and that really you came out of that cavern
foggy and watery. Your hands' tremblings made
the long line whip around, so the end would turn,
stopping you seeing the first. Made you afraid,
each one seeing the back of a head, for why
couldn't I see just where was set my own eye?
CYCLING WITH THE SUN
As you cycled along you took the sun through
winter trees, prickling out your track and your speed.
The sun had to obey.. It kept up with you,
having to peer through whatever twigs happened
to be there as you went. It had to take heed
as it crackled like fire, brightened and darkened
at once with just a quick push on the pedals,
dowsed behind houses, halved by a hill, flashing
in a morse code past lamp-posts, stamping medals
every time open sky showed itself, splashing
livid green on your retina — Or, with dread,
see it keeping an eye on your ride, instead.
CORDONS SANITAIRES
Round the drops on the pane on the inside there'd
be a small round misty patch, and the reason,
Daddy said, was because all the cold drops shared
('stole' was a better word) the heat that was ours.
You would see on the pavement weather-beaten
leaves that would keep water after the showers.
Though the sun would have dried all round them, they
stayed in the middle of damp, almost as green
as they were on the tree, wouldn't blow away
leaving the path free, and, if you hadn't seen
them, you might come a cropper. I'd think: around
you, suppose, a safe halo that God had bound.
TRANSPARENT THINGS
Liked transparent things 'cause when you looked they were
almost not there. Like ghosts they let you see what
was behind them. At windows the flies would burr
up and down, silly things, never learning that
there was no chance of freedom. On very hot
days, how refreshing water was to look at,
sunny nothing that mixed with itself and stayed
clear as before — the air never had as much
of the light in it. Down inside, tadpoles played
Statues, enjoying more sun than us, but touch
just the top and they all went wriggling away.
I'd wish I could play too, sunbathing all day.
SUBSTITUTES
You could tell if cut-glass was real: there were clear
cuts as if done with a magic knife, but some
people bought things just moulded — didn't appear
anything like the proper glass. Cheap tin cars had
windows printed in silver. They would become
real ones as long as you played. And you could add
those lead strips to your windows to look like stained
glass, but still everyone knew it wasn't real.
Could make jewels of glass, but no one complained.
Weren't they more colourful? If you want to feel
rich, won't cost very much. You'll have got class,
though your trick's as transparent as any glass.
THE SUN EVERYWHERE
It was funny everything you could see
showed its own bit of the sun. Water cheated
'cause it seemed to let all of it go quite free
through it, but one wave could bring a sudden dazzle.
Though the blackest things stayed the same, they heated
up. In the wood you would see the trees dapple
all the grass with the trees, and the grass the grass.
Night made them nothing. Worst was when some hiding
boy had taken a mirror, watched for you to pass
by. You'd come near, not noticing the sidling
little patch like a quicksilver coin. Wincing,
shocked, you saw so much sun you could see nothing.
GASLIGHT
Uncle Gus and Auntie Annie had gas
lamps. Couldn't light them with spills like Grandad his
pipe. You had to be careful — there was the glass
first and the mantle second. You could damage
both as easy as pie. There'd be a soft fizz;
then came the pop. Uncle opened the passage
with a lever. The blue turned white and the whole
room became bright with its colours. Through the earth
from the heavy gasometer the clear coal
gas it was pushed along pipes to burst into birth
as a flame and give light. Power made its way
from a millions-of-years-ago sunny day.
HALF-SEEING
With my eyes half-closed all the lights became
gold propellers that I swivelled over the world.
A plain gas-lamp would bloom with opaline flame
into shimmering globes lasting no longer
than a blink. Firework writing from the sun twirled
over everything, green and then red, stronger
in its branding than magnesium. With eyes closed,
when you rub you see nothing but patterns that won't
ever settle, so that the board you supposed
was for ludo's for chess, and those trunks you don't
run between 'cause they're bars. They weren't my design.
What I saw with my eyes it wasn't all mine.
SEEING MYSELF THROUGH TWO MIRRORS
When you passed by the ladies' hairdresser's, you
saw in the window where a corner had been
made of two mirrors. There you'd catch a view,
very disturbing to see, of someone that
seemed familiar somehow. Vanished between
them and then reappeared. But when he looked at
you (he stopped when you stopped), you saw it was you,
really a kind of twin, but all funny —
had his parting the right-hand side. Wasn't true.
Smiling what Auntie called my 'wry smile' wrongly.
Didn't like this peculiar person who
always went round with me, with his mouth askew.
COLOURED CELLULOID
Sometimes Daddy would bring coloured celluloid
back from the Picture House for me after
Christmas. Used in the lights 'cause people enjoyed
seeing nice colours around the big Christmas
tree. I'd look through a blue one, see a darker
garden and sky, the leaves dyed to weird blueness,
the lawn ultramarine — was a world with an
ocean for air and a sapphire sun.
Through the red was a sunset on a Martian
plain but one north, south, east, west, with cinnamon
roses, rose lilies. With that before my face
I just knew I had got to that magic place.
CRIMSON
I loved Crimson Lake. Little moist pat inside
neat little square pot. Lovely swirls came when you
put your brush on the paper. The dark bromide
up in the chemistry lab, concentrated,
all intense. Mammy's garnets had that strong hue
dyeing the sunlight. Wondered what created
the permanganate browny-maroon, staining
deeply at once. And autumn leaves — they had so
many crimsons, some, when it was raining,
wonderfully dull, quietly sad, or, they would grow
in the sun to a royal fire like a flare.
Surprise presents. I loved them. Sent me from where?
GREEN
When the Bengal Lights burned green, you glimpsed it, pure
green. Sort of flowed out from nowhere, as if there,
underneath all the seeing, you could be sure
green would be waiting to escape, through a crack
in a furnace, and then out it shot in a flare,
blazing its emerald self in a Kodak
flash. Or there in the round smooth glass, a tiny
bean of a light on the projector along
with a twin little red one with their shiny
chromium rings, poured out the flame, the same strong
constant reminder of what it had been and
what it would be and was, memory's fierce brand.
UPSIDE-DOWN FACE
Upside down you just couldn't make out the face
for you saw there two mouths with quick lips ready
to devour the whole world, one eye (a red space
with a tongue and some teeth that horribly blinked),
and the nose with a skull's two holes. The heavy
chin, the bald and triangular head that winked
like a Cyclops had nothing to do with what
you were hearing, which put you off what was said.
But I'd heard of the scientist who had got
on a pair of reversing glasses: instead
of the strangeness, he got to know sky from ground.
But with me, soon the blood in my head would pound.
LUMINOUS DISCS
It was fun to have luminous discs. At night
all of us held them up to a lamp to store
up the energy. Thick pale paint gave off light
green as a ghost, glowing with a secret fire.
Putting one in each hand you played semaphore,
or, if you whirled them around, made an entire
circle chasing its tail. Was for the black-out.
People would know where you were, even though all
they could see of your self was this very small
sign, like a little blank moon. No need to shout
in the dark you were coming. Avoided shocks.
We were marked like the hands on the pilots' clocks.
THE LUMINOUS DISC (II)
For the black-out a luminous disc. A pin
on the back to secure it to your lapel.
You could hold it to light, run to the kitchen,
close the door, and then see a pink or green glow
like a cinder, but cold, and you couldn't tell
what its size was. As little lamps they would show
in the mirror, would turn your face to a ghost.
If you swung them round, they wrote on the air
words that vanished. You'd see them till they almost
disappeared, like an earthshine moon. Meant for wear
in the dark, you could walk putting faith in a pin.
They would save you from bumps till you got back in.
CHEQUERED LINO
On our bathroom floor, squares in strict black and white.
They were nothing else but squares. They weren't shooting
in diagonal crossfire, searing eyesight
with black tracer from that side, white flak from this;
nor a jigsaw that wriggled, so permuting
all its pieces, no sooner fitting, they miss;
nor mechanical palimpsest where letters
once you read then would change; nor prison where bars
became ladders to freedom, and one's fetters
fell apart at a look; nor the masts and spars
of a ship that rebuilt herself on the sea:
just the squares on the bathroom lino to me.
A FLAW IN THE WINDOW-GLASS
With a flaw in the window there are many
little games you can play. If you shift your eyes,
you can buckle the flat horizon any
way you want, making mountains for you to climb,
raising alps over Blackrod. You can disguise
a church tower: you move, and you see it mime
a black flame, or a wriggling devil. A part
of the earth you can float like a green bubble
in the sky: trap the sky in the earth. The art
is to make the flaw suit you, without trouble
to you — moving is simple. Up in the air,
though, among the free clouds, you can't see it's there.
A FLAW
In some places in Uncle John's car windows
there were some bubbles or knots like in a piece
of wood. When you looked out, the hedges would flow
into a sort of whirlpool around them, so
leaves and twigs, tree trunks, gates, the grass, had to crease
themselves right into his tiny space to go
out again on the other side. Then I thought,
convex mirrors can straighten out smears into
a face, so with the right kind of eye one ought
to be quite able to straighten out this screw
in the light. But if you'd eyes like to that to stare
with, you wouldn't know there's been a bubble there.
THE BATHROOM WINDOW
All the glass of our bathroom window was made
up of a pattern of moulded cells, each one
like a ball of crushed feathers or crystal braid
splitting the sun, the sky, and the garden, so
I saw hundreds of pictures, a horizon
wriggled in each. Precise in each cameo
was a tiny world twisted about its own
way. Was as if I was a fly looking through
a huge compound eye, or, somehow I was shown
what all the other people could see, a view
that was different for everyone. They'd argue
till the cows would come home about what was true.
FACES IN THE LEAVES
In the leaves at my feet I'd see such faces.
There'd be a frowning brow in a crumpled leaf,
but the eyes they would be in other places,
inches behind, made out of shadows somewhere
in the grass underneath. That mouth bent in grief
fitted the stem of a sycamore, but the care-
worn lines down from the nose (made from the folded
back of an oak leaf) were the veins of a dry
hazel. A shift of the head to the side moulded
others to see, a new crowd of sad and sly,
joyful, furious, terrified and resigned.
There were no faces there. Were all in my mind.
THE FALSE BLUE SKY
Was a Lancashire rainy day, the water
washing the washed cobbles, the washed black chimneys
and the slates that reflected the sky, mortar,
stone and sooty brick, but it was still bright
in a Lancashire way. 'After-images'
blotted my sight — I'd been looking at a light
in Hart's shop where the Hornby trains were — all pink
when I looked down at the street, but they turned blue
when I looked at the sky, and they made me think,
just at the very same moment that I knew
it was false, that soon I would see all the blue.
Such fun to pretend, I thought it was true.
A BRIDGE AS A BOAT
Looking down from the bridge I saw the water
going past me, with eddies like whims spinning
free, developing impulse to meander
into nothing. Then suddenly the bridge moved,
was a floating deck rushing backwards,
sinking downwards. It seemed what had been rigid proved
to be secretly racing, and the seeming
independence of eddies came from the keel
of the boat I was on, and all the streaming
in the still water our doing. What was real
was a sailing machine to keep us going
and not water obediently flowing.
ON THE MOVING BRIDGE
Looking over the bridge, you had only to stare
just where the water went right underneath and
you'd imagine the bridge a boat. You could swear
it was the bridge that was moving as the bow
stuck far over, and you were able to stand
strangely upon a brick-built deck that somehow
never trembled or dipped, that was dead still, yet
drifted so smoothly onwards, like a balloon.
It was wonderful — you could really forget
you were as still as the bank. Would think you'd soon
have to give up your game, with no vibration,
dip or tremble, yet that was what made it fun.
FLOODLIGHTING IN DAYLIGHT
In their garden they had a trellis, all squares,
slightly away from the wall. One summer day,
with the sun shining down, attracted my stares
over and over. Couldn't work out why at
first, and wondered. Some trick to do with the way
light fell upon them. Then I saw that each slat
had its shadow above it — the light shining
up from below, as if somewhere on the ground
were some floodlights — in daytime! All my trying
couldn't get rid of the picture. But I found
out the reason: the shadows were those cast by
slats above. But I still saw as before. Why?
PICTURES IN TIME
Had a living-room clock over the fireplace.
Numbers were Roman, the case walnut. Was like
the one Alice saw, only instead its face
didn't have eyes or a mouth because the hands
would make faces, and then, when you heard it strike,
even would speak. You didn't need Wonderland's
transformation. A quarter-to-three, that could
beam at you happily, and twenty-to-four
was quite miserable. If you hadn't been good,
twenty-five-to-six disapproved, but if you're
feeling fine, was Stan Laurel pulling a face.
Could say any time was like that. Could say it of space.
MOTION ILLUSION ('Yet still the solitary cliffs wheeled by me...')
Watched the gramophone record turning so long
that, when it stopped, it seemed it was still turning
with a sort of deaf hiccup, a strange wrong
twisting where no twisting should be, elastic
solid sheet, a plain label that was churning
letters that stayed just as they were, a drastic
dizzy reading that shouldn't be happening
given the motor's stillness, my fingers' touch
on the motionless disc, the keen listening
that produced no more of the music. With such
live denial of common sense as it twirled
and remained as it was, I doubted the world.
THE 'LUMINOUS DUST' ILLUSION
If I stared at the blue sky long enough, I'd
see over all that great open space sudden,
tiny, wriggling and glinting sparks that would hide
back in the blue in less than a second, swarm
of swift miniature meteors, a plankton
of pure silence, that teased you to see them plain,
winking their wiry, spiralling tails at you
as they dived out of sight, and which one again
twinkled up there, or there? And where in the blue
could they be? Couldn't fix on a distance! See,
they just weren't in the world, although they must be!
'CRY YOU MERCY, I TOOK YOU FOR A JOINT-STOOL'
Took a stool as a person — it had a round face
and some legs, and its speech was not in the least
wooden. Keeping me company thus, in case
I should want for a friend, or an enemy,
or a father, a son, a sinner or priest.
That it didn't quite fit only finicky
minds would mind, for the slot in the top, though still,
could be flexible lips at a wish; the cold wood
of a leg was a hand that shook with a will
if I offered it mine, and it understood
how to menace with fists without hurting me,
and it never would think of deserting me.
THE BLIND SPOT
In Mee's encyclopedia was the Blind
Spot trick. You cover one eye and stare quite still
at a cross. When you move it closer, you find
to your surprise a black dot disappears. White
paper only is left. It's out of your will.
Some little thing in your brain, where there's no light,
paints some white in this hole (where your retina's
blind). So it's playing a trick on you. Some day,
say, a wasp could be flying with a cobra's
accuracy right at your eye, and betray
you this thing will just like a machine, proving
there are some things in you you can't help moving.
SMOKE-RING
In a smoke-ring a torus is an eddy,
turning upon itself, trapping at its heart
a few motes it will hug in an unsteady
sketch of a real thing in fluent, lucent,
silken piping, delicate tubular art
breath, that has made, can at once with negligent
sigh dismiss into fading chaos. It kept
with its identity in tremulous wave
onwards, timidly challenging time, and swept
new air around itself, managing to save
the old impulse in new, as faint as a shroud.
It's more certain than that in the mushroom cloud.
COMPASS
In the compass the needle wobbled, sideways
showing the not-quite-north, but up and down too,
so it traced out a funny writing, always
trying for compromise, longing to be still.
But it got there as long as you let it slew
this way and that on its own, with its own will
to end up pointing off the true north. Teacher
told us the magnetic north wasn't constant
but was moving itself: any traveller
moving through time would have to make permanent
alterations to guide him through that flowing —
but then what if it changed where he was going?
STROBOSCOPIC BANDS ON A TURNTABLE
On the turntable, outside on the rim, were
black-and-white bands. When you switched it on under
an electric light, there, instead of a blur,
turning at odds with the wheel was a ghost ring
that was sliding around. Found it a wonder
that there was something so plainly revolving
but it wasn't a part of the world. I knew
there underneath were the real bands but not one
of us saw them. You varied the speed and you
made the ghost ring stand still though the wheel still spun
on its centre. And yet you knew it was good
because then all the records played as they should.
BUBBLES IN SPIRIT-LEVELS
I liked bubbles in levels. They were a lovely
green colour, winking like eyes with gold, and they
ran about as they liked, their agility
only restrained by the fact that they always
had to go to the top. I often would play,
watching them bounce in the tube and sometimes craze
into two, into three. Then they would go pop,
merging again. There was no point in escape,
for they wouldn't be bubbles then, hard to stop
being themselves, for they would then have no shape,
getting lost in the air. But they worked as signs,
for their job was to keep between two red lines.
THE STRANGE BUBBLES
Mr. Leek in geography once told us
raindrops need dust to condense on. Mr. Druce
said that bubbles in fizzy drinks will focus
close on a tiny impurity, swell out
there one after another. It could drift loose,
this light invisible dot; bubbles would sprout
from a nothing that lifted with them up high,
reaching for air, sparks dangling upwards, a trail
of bright motes on the move, tiny travelling fry.
Flying as smooth as balloons, their strings could sail
in and out of each other, each spark keeping
the exact distance true. Felt myself peeping.
BUBBLES BURSTING
You'd have thought it was raindrops on the window
but, when I looked, there was nothing to spoil my
sunny Saturday. Sparky as a banjo,
crackly and all out of time, these raindrops that
weren't real raindrops were somewhere inside, close by
me. With my ears like a bat's, I found them at
the sink, bubbles of foam bursting. Put my ear
down to them. Not a one kept a beat, random
tick-tocks puncturing time, little clocks to spear
seconds, but only one each, ever. Phantom
sudden squall when I blew on them. It was odd.
Made a storm with a breath. I was the wind-god.
A BUBBLE'S ENDING
If you looked at a bubble for a while, you
saw that the gold streaks turned grey as they spiralled
and unfurled, matt magnesium-dusted, dew
dull before sunrise, that the iridescent
gilt ran over and back so quickly, marbled
end-papers melting away, opalescent
gleamings shrinking in anguish as they vanished.
Strangest of all, when the film grew so thin that
it no longer reflected the light, Daddy
said, a blank black hole appeared, cut through the matt
swirls, a nothing inside each eddy and twist,
as if nothing was something; then burst to mist.
THE SHINING TREASURE
There was something about cut-glass and silver
bright in electric light. I could gaze at a
chandelier and watch the pendants glitter,
flashing at random — dazzle dazzle — facets
that would flatten, expand as they turned, scatter
flecks that went prying over the room, Trinkets
where reflections of windows had run like bright
mercury into all corners, along all
edges. These were all signs of somewhere where light
went with some happiness. Something did enthral
me once. What was this treasure? It seemed a lot.
I was missing something. I didn't know what.
SHADOW EVIDENCE
You could tell where one leaf was by the shadow
that a leaf over it threw, and where that one
was too, for the same shadow would let you know.
That one, a tree-trunk's, that went dipping over
the grass showed where the dips were and where the sun
was, where the tree was. The shadow was vaguer
as you walked from the trunk, so you knew how far
you had walked. But no shadow could speak at all.
It was like finding out how old trees are
by counting rings, for the rings aren't words, don't call
out a number. So shadows are just as dumb too.
You are Hercule Poirot finding a clue.
MY SHADOW AS A CHILD
I would run with my shadow, watch him jumping
up at me round a post, peeling himself round
railings. Sometimes he'd wriggle freely, bumping
over stones without hurting himself; sometimes
he was forced to stay bowed, stiffly bent, bound
at a wall. With my hands, amazed at his mimes,
I'd be rabbit or wolf. The sunrise would stretch
him to a giant and the noon to a blot. At sunset
he would hide and be lost. Then a switch would fetch
him back. Tables and chairs chopped his silhouette
into pieces. A fire was best. He would gad
about over the word as if he were mad.
MICA
I liked mica. It was as if nature had
made us these windows, both resistant to heat
and so paringly thin. Each layer was clad
in a yet thinner layer, crackling apart
with the air colour-feathered between, each sheet
papery-crisp, but if you bent them, would start
back to where they had been, like springs. Then, as flakes,
gave a plain stone a star-glitter, live as frost
when you walk by, and flashing when granite breaks
swivelling light to eyes and away. It glossed
itself, wouldn't be polished, lustrous inside.
Tough as flint, but its edge would freely divide.
VALVES
In the wireless sets Daddy mended, you'd see
wires stretched on hooks inside valves. They'd glow with fire
with the grids and the anodes a silvery
boundary round them, shut in a vacuum,
taut on little stilts. Underneath you'd see wire
soldered in place but all mazy, but the hum
and the fiery elements showed Daddy
knew where they ought to go. Dud valves I would smash
to look inside. The grids were a shivery
mess, and the anode's mirror black from the flash
of the fuse, and the element all in beads
rattling round, looking like hard and barren seeds.
INSIDE AN OLD WIRELESS
In the wireless a maze made of wires in all
colours, that wriggle to bright beads of solder
that were smoked with the flux. Each valve in its stall,
tingling with fire like smooth amber in sunlight,
the inleaving condensers, the square-shoulder,
mummied transformer, the resistors told apart
by their codings of colour (military
armbands), the waxen capacitors — each one
had its place in the circuit. This jiggery-
pokery matched a pure map for electron,
kept the sound always pure from the diaphragm,
though what caused it was not on the diagram.
FLUX
Without flux, Daddy said, the solder wouldn't
hold on the joint. On the soldering-iron there
was the copper, as pink as a tongue. Pungent
outspringing smoke as he dipped the tip gently
in the dark yellow ointment. The wire was bare,
rasped on the emery-paper, and ready,
clean of oxide and grease, and the grey metal
contact was new with a bloom like a grape, but
if you tried without flux, you'd never settle
solder in place. The joint would snap as if cut,
with the solder in beads. With the sharp flux, though,
it would ran to embrace then in one swift flow.
WHEELS
Wheels were fun. Just a coin you could bowl along,
watch it go pure-somersaulting on its way
till it coiled in a settling whir, like a gong
in its fading. Toy cars could make your hand run
without let over curves, libidinous play.
Then with cogs, gritting teeth, the handle you spun
at this point turned the great big wheel over there,
spokes pointing upward and downward because you
were demanding it. Cams and cranks declare
bias, designed to deflect just in order to
keep the real end in view. Sometimes wheels go slow,
start to judder and falter, then just won't go.
CHIMNEYS
Didn't like chimneys. Pickup's chimney had a
top hat, all black, and a big letter 'P' like
a white tie. At the side there was a ladder
going up, smaller and smaller. If you climbed,
though you weren't as high as Rivington Pike,
you'd be afraid to come down. You'd get all grimed
with hot smoke, and the lightning conductor
might draw the lightning towards you. Nobody
passing by would look up and if you chucked a
brick, you might hit someone, and then a bobby
would come after you, climbing up from below
with the handcuffs, but there'd be nowhere to go.
STEAMROLLERS
I liked steamrollers. I'd wonder, 'Is the power
more in the engine or the weight of the wheels
and the roller?' I'd watch when they came down our
avenue, men with shovels having to bow
as they threw down the grit, and one pouring seals,
boiling hot, of tar that stuck it all. What a row
all the pieces of grit made when the roller
came to flatten them! But they couldn't get
away. Those that you noticed flipping over
glad to escape didn't know that the wheels yet
had to come. Even then some were loose. The men
would come back sweep them up to be rolled again.
LODGES
I liked lodges. Reflected in them the mill
windows reflected the sky, and from the cat-walk
with its neat little railings you saw the still,
brown, dusty water with your own silhouette
looking up underneath it. You saw each stalk
disappear, browner and browner, and the wet
reaching higher and higher on the black brick.
No one could tell how deep it was, but sluices,
fat pipes blotchy with rivets, and gates with thick
bars and iron plates where the rust had made sketches
and scribbled initials, confessed to us
it was made to do work like the rest of us.
CROFTS
I liked crofts. In between two brick terraces
there's be a cindery space no one had ever
tried to tidy up. Crossed over with gullies
where all the purple and orange ash uncurled
in the rain into fern patterns and feather,
it had craters and plains like another world
where the coltsfoot and groundsel grew like cactus
trees, all alone. It was my desert. I'd drive
my reconnaissance car over the trackless
wastes with no flowers to mind, and I'd survive
all the thirst on my own through the burning day,
though the people that crossed would get in the way.
THE FIVE-POUND NOTE
That a five-pound note had no colour was strange.
Since all the pounds were green-lacy with wreaths and
posh engravings, you'd think that what had to change
were the patterns and pictures to something more
posh still, golden crowns, silver shields, or some grand
flag, or treasure chest bursting with jewels or
doubloons, pieces of eight, and pearls, like you see
in the comics when someone gets his reward,
with those shining rays round it, or fleur-de-lis,
stars, keys, portcullises, to suggest a hoard
of huge value. But just as exciting — white
paper, black manuscript, seemed exactly right.
SPIRAL SHELLS
I liked spirals in shells. In a broken one
there'd be the secret storeys, getting smaller
with each turn. At the last one, where had it gone?
Did it continue? With a microscope would
you still see it, more turns twisting on farther,
right to infinity? Suppose the shell could
grow forever the other way — never pause,
adding each year a bigger one, would it grow
to eternity? What terror it would cause
swallowing Earth and the Universe! Zero
to infinity shells go. Beautiful dead friends.
They were living between nothings at both ends.
CONES
You collected fir cones and pine cones. You knew
why. Were like toys specially made, so bouncy
could be something like shuttlecocks — say, they flew
springily off some unusual bat. Had
a neat pattern of intwirling scales, browny
overlaps, fitting as armoured mail, close-clad
as on serpents or armadillos all round
where they were fastened, but opening out wide
at the bottom. Flick them, you heard a sound
just like a xylophone softened. You felt pride
with a big one. They stayed on the windowsill
getting dusty, but next year they'd be there still.
CHESTNUTS
There came down from the chestnut trees these spiky
sea-urchins, green-apple-coloured. There inside
in a cosy white nest, the conkers, shiny,
french-polished, concentric circles all over,
just like malachite, sucked bull's-eyes, mountainside
contours. Felt like a solid tiny boulder,
smooth as wax. Was a nut, so you wanted to
eat it, but couldn't. Spanish kids were lucky:
they could roast theirs. You just gazed, wishing they grew
up in the North, but ours wouldn't taste nutty —
they would give you a tummy-ache. Beautiful
things were sometimes like that, were crafty, cruel.
A TREE IN STEREOSCOPY
In the spring on a tree when the buds had just
opened, you'd see all the shape of the tree sparked
out in green, but inside, all the branches thrust
upwards and forwards and back, as if it were
a big chandelier upside down, the space marked
solid and free throughout, with nothing to blur
the crisp nearness of this branch in front of that,
those in the middle so 'middlish', those beyond
so 'beyondish', stereoscopically pat
there in the sunlight, all astir, with each frond
making sure that all other fronds you could trace
in this intricate hollow of lovely space.
STARLINGS IN FLIGHT
I'd watch starlings in flight. On a calm day,
all of the flock seemed to be held together
by elastic; like oil on water would stay
smooth-edged, but changing from raindrop to ellipse
to a figure-of-eight, splitting at pleasure
but, the next minute, with the rises and dips
of the whole, were quicksilver-blended to
one knitted round as before. It was never
the same bird who was leader. How did they do
it? When there came a day of windy weather,
they were blown all at odds, lead-shot from a gun.
They fought back to their dream of being all one.
A MOVING STILLNESS
With the sand of the dunes so fine, so dry, I
found it such fun digging holes down the smooth bank,
for you'd dig a big conical hole, try
getting it deep as you could before the sand
started moving to fill it. At once it sank,
somewhere; a tiny stream would pour and expand
to a gully, ravine, a gorge like the Grand
Canyon, and flow into screes below sharp-edged
cliffs. Then, suddenly, all would begin to stand
still once again as a landscape, till I dredged
out more. Funny, the edge of its stopping flowed
up the bank: saw a motion where stillness showed.
MISE EN ABYME
Thought about the strange picture the Radio
Times had where Jessie Matthews held the same
Radio Times showing her holding it. Would go
on to infinity. So suppose your painting
showed a wall with a painting on it. The game
is to enlarge that painting, see it gaining
with its frame each step nearer to the real one,
frame inside frame like an endless corridor.
Then at last, the frames touch (not like when mirror
faces mirror), sliding under themselves till none
show but one, the real one. What picture to view?
Was disturbing to think any one would do.
STIRRING MY COCOA
When I stirred up my cocoa all the bubbles
twirled in the middle. There was a central mat
and long spiral arms. I upset its struggles
over and over again with my stirring.
I was watching a spiral nebula that
I was the god of. But I'd think, my whirling
round could make it, my spoon destroy it —
bursting the bubbles, leaving one on its own,
popping big ones — but though I could enjoy it
one way, another I couldn't. All alone
I'd be watching: whatever a planet's plea,
it could never send signals for help to me.
LINES
In the comics when something went fast, they drew
lines going back from all the edges of it
like a swallow draws lines on the sky. If you
drew with your finger a line across your thigh
it would leave a red mark as if the blood lit
up where it had been. I'd take a sparkler on Guy
Fawkes Night, wave it around in front of my eyes:
over the dark night wonderful scribbles like
golden barbed wire surrounded me. At sunrise
all whirly clouds lay over Rivington Pike
that would curl where they wanted, like climbing vines
on the sky, but the wind drew them out in lines.
SMOKING
Used to wonder why smoking looked so posh, so
elegant, specially when ladies were doing
it, a holder in hand. The ends aglow,
smoke taping up and then rippling, they all laughed,
talked, and felt rich and fashionable, bluing
air all around them. You couldn't call it daft
even though sixpences went up in smoke, for they
all liked to do it together. They held out
little flames in their hands as if to convey
them were a holy offering; they would suck and pout,
stretch, and tap ash, blow rings, wave with the hand.
They all played it together just like a band.
PIPES
All those pipes that important men smoked, I found
strange. Little fires in a wooden cup, and you
were the bellows. They glowed when you sucked, the sound
crackling and softly hissing. Thought the smoke must
be hot. Adverts said cool — it couldn't be true.
Grandad had special tools to scrape out the crust,
and those furry pipe-cleaners that you could twist,
making a little man. A few had funny
faces on like an old gnome grinning. Your fist
held it, or sometimes your teeth. It got runny
inside. Pipes look important to suck and to poke,
or are you the important one when you smoke?
FEELING SOMETHING IN A DREAM
Didn't know what to do about that dream. Who,
told what had happened, would ever believe it?
You could see things in a dream, they said. It was true,
everyone said so, and hear sometimes too, for
in a dream people said things. Had to admit
that, for the story you dreamt couldn't work or
there'd be no dream at all. Couldn't taste things, smell
things — at least I couldn't. Daren't tell grown-ups what
really happened. To feel in a dream! To tell
someone at all they'd think you were mad. A lot
worse, though, telling of what you felt, as, so kind,
she drew both your hands round to feel her behind.
FACES IN THE FIRE
Yes, see faces in the fire, but wallpaper will do
equally well. Leonardo da Vinci
recommended a wall, but really you
are not prevented from using any sight
at all — just take these letters — a grinning 'e',
'a' very doubtful, and 'c' ready to bite
But go on from there: with determination
anything looked at can become anything
else. You don't have to be psychotic. Icon
lies inside you. Children easily bring
magic mountains from bedclothes. They know full well
how to make up a world, make heaven from hell.
THE FIRE
On the back of the grate were arcs of fire like
edges of clouds, ruby-lined, sparking in their
slow and jerky advance through the soot. I'd strike
coal down inside where the glowing heat was to
see it grow bulbs of tar that spurted white flare-
tusks. Like some grey seaweed, further up the flue,
soft, frail feathers of soot fluttered in the draught.
Down in the glow, an unreachable cavern,
faces threatened and grinned, live in the heat-waft,
secret, grotesque, escaped from a black prison
locked with spells now helpless. What was hooking
me so hard? Into what space was I looking?
THE GREAT STONE FACE
As we cycled to Wales we passed Helsby Cliff where
just at one angle you saw a great stone face,
very stern, like the Capstan sailor, a stare
into the sky of a huge old bearded man,
sort of god or a king, searching into space,
sure he would find it or find him. You began
thinking you were the one he was looking for.
Sooner or later, so thorough his search, he
would discover the place you were hiding, draw
you to a court where the law made any plea
of no use. His quick clouds gave me qualms of fear.
I was glad when our road made him disappear.
LIKENESSES (II)
When I saw upon Helsby Cliff that profile
like an old man, I thought there must be somewhere
someone whose face was like that. And if you smile,
perhaps there's a cliff somewhere, looked at sideways from just
one particular place — if you could compare
it with you, you could see youself. If you must
make it fit absolutely, search through all time —
you'd be bound in the end to find a good match.
That was strange! Only God, I thought, saw the rhyme
hidden there. Leonardo saw in a patch
anything he wanted. Perhaps I'd see
that fine girl who'd be falling in love with me.
SEEING THINGS
I heard the boy who threw horse turds calling the
chimney at Pickup's 'Pickup's dick'. When someone
told you something like that, then forgetting the
meaning just couldn't be done. You'd try not to
let it stay in your mind, but then Rivington
Pike was a breast as well, and when you got to
half way up at one place, two of the big hills
looked like a bottom. I would say I wouldn't
look across when I got up there, but your will's
not altogether yours, is it? I couldn't
really stop myself saying, 'Yes, I will, yes!'
All the same I was pleased that no one could guess.
CONTRASTS
When that little boy looked down into the well,
he said, 'Isn't it high down there!' When you turned
the page that way, all the black print would spell
out the words in a shining white. And at school
in the geography lesson good pupils learned
that, if you travel east far as you can, you'll
end up west. Even clocks looked at from the back
would go anti-clockwise. What stuck out convex
was concave from this side. The bicycle track
in the mud showed your tread inside out. And specs
made things smaller the wrong way round. To curse a
girl made sense when love was hate, or vice-versa.
UNCLE TOM'S TRICKS
Uncle Tom's shop was slightly out of the way,
just a bit far up Chorley New Road, so he,
just to get people to come to his shop and stay
staring a while, always put in his window
special tricks, like the picture of the foamy
Guinness that upended itself, saw it flow
from the bottle to fill the glass — it happened
just as you walked past — you could make it flow back.
And the glittering wheel where letters brightened,
darkened to write 'Sandeman's best!' in a track
of entrancing star fire. What a waste, I'd think,
of those tricks just to make people buy some drink!
LOOKING UPSIDE-DOWN
I liked putting my head between my legs and
looking right down on the sky. I'd be flying
over oceans and continents. All the land
wasn't the shapes that you knew in the atlas,
but all new. You could go where you liked, floating
free as the wind, coming down on the cirrus
islands where you could go scrambling
up the crags without falling (only have gone
up in the sky if you did!); then reaching
home at least. But I'd have to stand up instead
'cause the blood would be throbbing hard in my head.
MY FINGERNAILS
If I held up my fingernails I'd see four
faces like nuns'. The little one got closer
to the next one for safety — that one was more
beautiful than the others, but she too leaned
to the middle, the Mother Superior,
glaring so sternly at me, as if she screened
them from me. And my forefinger looked ugly,
grinning with mouth on one side (that was the way
my mouth smiled) and her shoulders were all hunchy.
Was as if she was the Devil hid away
in a nun's habit watching me. He would hurl
me to Hell if I spoke to the pretty girl.
THE TWO FACES IN THE DRESSING-TABLE
In our bedroom across from me the dressing-
table had faces in the grain of its wood.
You could see one that grinned at me with slanting
eyes as if ready to torture me. The ropes
wouldn't keep it away. But one was a good
face, all smiling and kind, that could raise your hopes
with its nice sideways wrinkles like a granny
has. I would try to see that one always, but
it was funny, you see, because the happy
face was just where the other was. It would shut
up its smile and become the ropes. The disguise
disappeared. I could only see slanting eyes.
LIGHT ON GOSSAMER
You could only pick out the spider's lines by
seeing the sun's reflections on them, rainbow-
tinted, two for each line. If you closed one eye,
one of the two disappeared, higher up for
the left one, lower down for the right. To know
which one was odd: you couldn't tell what you saw
without closing one eye. With both open, two
bright needles sidled like shuttles up and down,
piercing gold into green into mauve. Was true,
there straight in front of you, a clown
of a sight saying, 'Here they are, all revealed!'
but you knew you were tricked. What else was concealed?
OUT OF THE WAY OF WAVES
When you blew in your cup tiny ripples jerked
up and down, trying to get over the side
but they knew that they couldn't. In the bath you worked
waves like a swing, but though they might splash the floor,
didn't matter if you got wet. You could ride
legs in the air through the puddles and you tore
all the water in two: all the dry road had
spots in a double fan but your wheels threw
all the drops off each side of you. You saw mad
waves on the sea stampeding at you like blue
herds of buffaloes not caring where they go,
but they hardly could tickle your little toe.
ACOUSTIC MENTAL IMAGE
Grieg's Piano Concerto, the first movement:
first of my records. Made Christmas wonderful.
A plum-label HMV — extravagant
purchase at six-and-eightpence. But if you heard
it through so many times it seemed so little.
What was strange, though, at the thirty-third —
or the fifty-fifth — hundredth time, I found I
could play it back in my head with every
note in place like the record. Nothing to buy!
There it would be, in volume and clarity
just whenever I wanted it. All for free!
Moiseivitch, the London Phil, played in me.
WOBBLES
On the draining-board sometimes a plate or bowl
got into such a position, if you knocked
it a little it started wobbling, making
regular clackings or tickings. Funny thing
was, it didn't give up: the swing of it rocked
it into being a clock without a spring,
for it went on and on. In time, though, you heard
those steady tick-tockings beginning to go faster.
Was it time going faster? That was absurd,
but you imagined it was.— A disaster
for us all, made us dash to death and decay.
The note rose. Then to silence it whined away.
PLAYING THE RECORD BACKWARDS
Put the pick-up across to the other side;
Start in the middle. The music plays backwards.
It was like a harmonium. Notes would slide,
wheezing and gasping. Tunes would go the wrong way
like a donkey's hee-hawing, like a drunkard's
drone. Every rhythm seemed to suffer delay
and an increase of speed the very same time.
words of a foreign language came in the song,
with "Ee-yup!' and 'Ee-yap!' as a kind of rhyme.
I used to wonder if, when I got it wrong,
there was someone for whom it wasn't awry.
He went backwards in time and passed us all by.
GRANDAD'S GRAMOPHONE (II)
Grandad's gramophone-player was all in black
wood, very shiny, the horn in the middle
coming down. Two little doors folded back
making it louder or softer. Couldn't reach
very far with your hand. A kind of riddle
how all the sound twisted down. And then for each
record you had to wind it up. Your effort
changed into music and singing. You put in
a small handle and turned: it played a concert
only for you. But sometimes it would begin
to go slow, and the music turned to a grinding.
Had no more of the force of your hard winding.
HOME-MADE GRAMOPHONE-RECORD
Took some thick lead foil, cut it into the shape
of a record, then scored a long spiral groove
with a nail. As I turned, I wiggled the scrape
just like sound-waves. Miraculous tracks concealed
the Messiah on real records. To move
a sharp needle along then strangely revealed
all the splendour of angels, at least if you'd
wound it up as you should. Then I bored a hole
in the centre. Agog for the magnitude
of my miracle, setting my secret scroll
on the turntable, turned on, all eagerness.
There was horrific hellish crashing, endless.
KEEPING IN TIME
When the hand-bell rang 'Ice-cream!', we rushed outside.
When the organ was pumped, we sang 'Faith of our
Fathers', thrilling in unison. Christmastide
carols went with the presents. The Salvation
Army played in an empty circle, dour
in their black; we ignored them. On one station
Ovaltineys were drinking in perfect concord:
Daddy stayed tuned to the National Programme.
We all stood, facing one way: some sang a fraud
of the school song. I didn't. You rang the tram
driver 'Stop!' and he stopped. When, under the moon.
kings kiss queens, darling, they are playing our tune.
HOW A BUZZER WORKS
In the buzzer, said Daddy, there was a coil
acting as magnet when the current went through.
The inventor was clever: he made it foil
all its own effort, because as soon as it
turned to magnet, it pulled a little screw —
this was the contact — and it broke the circuit
to the coil. All the magnetism vanished.
There was a spring, though, and this pulled the screw back
to make contact again. What was banished
started again to be stopped. A maniac
back-and-forth. It was trapped. Knew its name: 'relay'.
When it tried to obey, it would disobey.
'EVEN SUCH A SHELL THE UNIVERSE ITSELF
IS TO THE EAR OF FAITH...'
Took a shell, like a silken pink-and-green horn.
Daddy said, 'Listen inside it. ' At my ear
put the hole, and a husky hoarse voice was born,
loud held close, softer away. 'Can you hear it?
That's the sea!' Knew it wasn't. How could you hear
waves that were miles off at Southport? To admit
you could hear them was silly. But it was fun
thinking it was. Could pretend they were sending
you a message, a holiday whisper, spun
out from its spiral. It was fun pretending.
Could be the Earth spinning round! Or stars as they bend
in their galaxy tracks! What fun, to pretend!
SCRUMPLING GREASE-PAPER
If you scrumpled this grease-paper up, it would
go on untwisting itself ever such a
long time like it was living. You'd think it could
get back its nice smoothness again, not a crease
left to show, but instead you'd see it shudder,
twitch as if midges were biting it. The grease
didn't oil it. You'd hear it making noises,
snappings and croakings, as if it was very
thirsty, or you could hear whispering voices
like it was talking to itself busily
about how it would soon be smoother, freeing
itself forever, like a human being.
VOICES IN THE HEAD
On the wireless you'd sometimes hear the crooner
sing 'If I had a talking picture of you!'
But you'd think, in your own mind all the sooner
there you could hear her and see her. You could hear
at once anyone's voice. Had to take their cue
out of your brain straightaway just for your ear —
no, the ear in your head! What was the most fun
was the voice couldn't decide what to say. They
had to say what you made them say. You could run
through a record of Mr. Coffee: 'This day
is a holiday!' Mammy — (never came true!)
'Here's some money for chocolates, all for you!'
THE GREAT ABYSS
Was when Mammy made bread. There would be the flour
filling the bowl, like some white desert mountains.
Then she'd scoop with a big spoon. Cliffs would tower
round a huge crater, its sharp sides vertical
or with overhangs. Nothing fell, like curtains
or a castle, the walls solid, colossal,
and as sheer as Yosemite, with awesome
thousands of feet to toppled, ruinous rocks,
an abyss without match on Earth. Felt numb
thinking of falling headlong down on those blocks,
half a minute or more for your last amen.
I was glad when she mixed it all up again.
THE CAVALRY AT THE SLUICE-GATE
When he opened the sluice-gate, the water fell
out in a rush just like the king's cavalry
in a charge at the rebels. Riding pell-mell,
galloping strong, nothing could stop them. I could
hear them shouting, "Get out of the way, filthy
rabble!", their sabres flashing. Nothing withstood
all the might of their hooves. I could hear the mobs
shrieking with fear as they scattered: "Spare us! Spare
us!" and cries of the wounded men and the sobs,
louder than them, of widowed wives. Through the blare
of the bugles I heard a mutter of brave
men who vowed a revenge, who would come to save.
TIME AND THE CLOCKS
I saw quarter past twelve as a quarter to
seven. Clocks are not meant to be read upside-
down. I thought, though, that somewhere on the world you
would find quarter to seven was right by the sun.
That was odd. So the clock was always a guide
to the right time for someone, and. should it run
slow or fast, it would slide through longitudes too,
always finding the people whose clocks were right
by it. Even when it stopped, you could keep it true
if you flew it along with the edge of night
through the world, but the trouble then, you would find,
was that flying would leave your people behind.
THE HARMONIUM
Auntie Edna in Ramsbottom Road had a
reddish harmonium. Pieces of carpet
on the treadles; the rows of keys a ladder
up to the knobs, all china like taps, each named:
'TREBLE', 'TENOR', DIAPASON'. The rocket
drawn in the Wells book had a cockpit all framed
close around you like that. When you pressed the cheese-
shaped treadles, keys would moan and grumble and hoot.
They would have to — you'd pulled a knob. They would wheeze,
whine, and subside into hisses, wouldn't toot
anymore if you slowed down your feet. Music,
it depended on you for its own magic.
WHERE DO TUNES COME FROM?
Had a 'party-piece' I could sing: 'The Cradle
Song' by Johannes Brahms, a German. A fine
tune I got to know so well I was able,
after a while, to write all the notes out by
heart. I wondered about why it was that line,
just that one, made the sweet melody. You try
putting other notes in and the tune went wrong,
turned into nonsense. They said composers made
them up, but it was more like they found the song.
So were there more of them to discover, laid
away, hidden and locked in a treasure-chest?
Would be lovely to find one, out on a quest.
'MAIRZYTOTES'
'Mairzytotes and dozytotes' is what you sang.
Went on with 'Little lambsy-tivy, tiddly
tivy too, wouldn't you!' Was it really slang,
nonsense or just a refrain? No one minded.
We all sang it as if we were all giddy.
Words didn't matter; the tune sort of blinded
you. The meaning was something we all knew
but wouldn't let on to. But the song went on
further, told you that, if the words puzzled you,
all you had to do was to change the accent on
this and that, sing it slower. Was 'Mares eat oats.'
Just as daft! But it forced you to sing the notes.
'BOOTS' *
On the moors you went marching singing the 'Boots'
song that you heard Peter Dawson sing. Soldiers
you were, tramping along boldly, toots
from the fifes and the thumps from the drums
all to keep you instep. They were a joker's
words 'cause he sang he could only see his chum's
boots go sloggin' in front if him and he tried
thinking of something different — 'Oh my god,
he said, 'keep me from going lunatic!' Stride
on, you did, guns in your hands. Was fun as you trod
back to tea, and it wasn't a 'chronic sight'
seeing Dennis's boots. You'd enjoyed the fight.
* Words by Kipling, tune by MacCall.
RACHMANINOFF'S PRELUDE IN C SHARP MINOR
A Rachmaninoff Prelude it was, Daddy
said, in C Sharp Minor. Sounded very grim,
very sharp. But the worst, though, was the story.
Daddy said you'd to imagine that someone
had been buried alive. He was the victim,
say, of a wicked villain, or they had gone
and mistaken a coma for death, and he
wakes up when six feet down. You hear him struggle,
feeling terrible fear. No noise can carry
up to the passers-by. The thumps then dwindle
away. Ran to the garden away from the sound,
but I couldn't help looking down at the ground.
'IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING'
Was the London Philharmonic Orchestra,
Hugo Rignold the conductor. A school trip
to the concert, my first. Played 'Fantasia
on Greensleeves ', known from the record that Mammy
had, but best was the Grieg. The 'Mountain King's' grip
on me — it started with sinister, foxy
creepings, trolls who were stepping along with you,
hidden but gleeful, knowing they outnumbered
you and knowing that they were going to
get you; more, ever more, racing in weird,
wilder spirallings round in their wicked fun
till they jumped out in front of you. Had they won?
BEETHOVEN'S 'MOONLIGHT' SONATA
At the Wesleyan Methodists one evening
there came a pianist, a woman in black,
a long dress, and long fingers. She was playing
'Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata' on a grand
piano. And her face, with her hair drawn back,
looked so mysterious and lovely. Each hand
seemed to flow with the music it played until
seemed to me all the one-two-three, one-two-three
seemed to be her, until the tune seemed to fill
all of the space in the hall, and all of me,
and so sad it was, singing 'Ne-ver, ne-ver!'
There'd been something so lovely, gone forever.
DISCOVERING MUSIC
Can remember the magic look of a plum-
label HMV record, gold lettering,
neat round hole, the fine blurrings where a loud thrum
was in the music, the smoother, silkier
places where some melody was entrancing,
secret, unheard. This great round disc, glossier
than the tar summer melted, would turn into
time, slow-revolving out its wonderful sound
as the pick-up went travelling on. You knew
where all the best bits were and became spellbound
as miraculous thrills went through you, aglow
with the sweetness. Why? Worth trying to know.
THE ISLE OF MAY'
Was Tchaikovsky's 'Andante cantabile'
Mammy liked. She had had the record, a light-
blue Columbia, ever so long. She'd say
how 'very moving' it was. There was one tune
where it started and ended sometimes you might
think was 'The Volga Boatmen', but they would croon
the nice one that came in between, singing 'We
strolled along through the heather — Love was in tune,
June on the Isle of May!' They shouldn't make free
with a composer's work, she said. Very soon
I did find she was right. I lost it. Instead,
heard the words from a little voice in my head.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RECORD
On the back of Andante cantabile
there was the end of another piece, the 'Trout'
Quintet, by Schubert. They'd only time to play
through a few minutes. It was the trout made me think
about water. One tune did a roundabout
twirl like an eddy again, again, to sink
into rock-sided hollows, then spread over
swirling pools, holding hands in a kind of dance.
Then another went tripping, skipping down a
terrace of steps, changing its notes as by chance.
At the end it slowed down to plan its last spree,
and then leapt in cascades down to the sea.
THE HAWTHORN NEEDLES
On our radiogram we didn't use steel
needles. You could buy ones made out of plastic,
but the best sound I found, really the most real,
that was produced by a thorn off a hawthorn
bush. The PX4 triodes gave fantastic
bass noise, the hiss disappeared, trumpet and horn
and trombone were metallic and full, woodwind,
drums, violins — all were crisp and dramatic.
The old steel needles cut at your ear with tinned
climaxes, greying the tracks, automatic
and intense. That a thorn could give a machine
such a wonderful tone was strange, unforeseen.
SIR ARTHUR BLISS'S MELODRAMA: ATTACK
On the back of March: Mobilization you
found Melodrama: Attack. Was marvellous —
in the future, a war. You heard a tattoo,
whirlwinds of shells, drumming machines, and grinding,
grating tanks, swooshing missiles, mysterious
weapons that whizzed and whanged, explosions blinding,
banging, toppling the skyscrapers, and rending,
wrenching the sky-arched bridges. Some alien
force smashed civilization. It's the ending
final, foretold. But somewhere a Wellsian
rocket's there on its pad, and soon it ascends
and escapes to the stars with me and my friends.
JOHN GIBSON PUTTING ME RIGHT
When I heard it suggested by John Gibson,
seemingly by the way, it was possible
that my favourite March Mobilization
could have been influenced by Gustav Holst's Mars,
I was quick to deny it. Mars untuneful,
crashing away with discords, thumpings and jars,
was no sci-fi excitement. But he was right,
and so polite in just hinting I might be
wrong. But John, he believed political light
shone out of Moscow and Marx, and we would see
Stalin beaming such friendship. I couldn't learn
from his musical tact how to hint in turn.
RHAPSODY IN BLUE
Couldn't help when I listened to Daddy's own
record, called 'Rhapsody in Blue', fancying
that I lived in Chicago, there all alone.
I was a black man and smart, swaggering down
a big 'avenue' under neons flashing,
bulbs running round cinema canopies. Brown
shoes with spats on my feet, twiddling a thin cane
silver at both ends, passing the speak-easies,
and my straw hat tipped sideways. Later, a pain
there in my heart because I'd lost my honey's
love, so long ago now. I'd wipe away tears
and go striding along so brave through the years.
BRAHMS' VIOLIN CONCERTO
Harry Tyler, the insurance-man, was so
friendly. He seemed to like Mammy and Daddy
so I liked him. But more than that: there's a glow
warming his memory of his bright parlour
and his radiogram shining and its ruby
warning-light on, and dark-blue Columbia
records, covers with bluey pictures showing
where an intent violinist was inspired
by a muse like an angel so his bowing
made notes into stars. And like him I am fired
by the sound of Brahms' Violin Concerto,
and thus always bound to this Tyler tableau.
KURT ATTERBERG'S SYMPHONY No. 6, Op. 31, in C Major
Sort of knew that in 1928 a
Schubert centenary competition had
been held. Task was to finish to the coda
what had been 'Unfinished'. The judges' decision
was absurd: for their choice of first prize a bad,
short, Nordic symphony — Oh, what derision!
It was nothing like Schubert! So when Mr. Gough,
neighbour of ours, kept trying to lend me it
(was his only orchestral work!), I was off-
putting, too inwardly snooty to permit
the invasion. But later found myself hurled
into Atterberg's sombre dynamic world.
RUSSIAN TUNES
Heard the 'Dawn' in Khovanschina, the tune
heard On the Steppes of Central Asia, 'The Great
Gate of Kiev', the melody the bassoon
plays in Scheherezade, second movement,
the 'Polovtsian Dances', the jolly fete
there in Petrouchka : they all had an accent
that was Russian. I didn't know what the notes,
rhythms or harmonies were called, but I knew
them, could recognise specialness. From the throats,
thrilling you through, of the Red Army choir, you
heard the same strain, a strangely lovely Russian
one, as English were English, German, German.
'THE SONG OF THE FLEA' *
Was a bass singer Daddy liked — Chaliapin.
Red-label record called 'The Song of the Flea'.
Daddy said that a demon sang in an inn
all about how a king made a favourite
of a flea, gave it noble rank by decree,
dressed it in silks, though all the court found it bit
them. It brought its relations along and they
bit all the people as well. But the song ends
with it telling you you don't have to obey —
fleas can be cracked with your fingers! It depends
what you mean by 'a flea'. That voice, big and strong,
of the fiend said, 'You don't have to suffer wrong.'
By Modeste Moussorgsky; words from Goethe's Faust, the scene in Auerbach's tavern — Mephistpheles' song.
ARAB DANCE FROM THE NUTCRACKER SUITE
It went 'Dah-dum-dum-Dah, Dah-dum-dum-Dah' straight
through without stopping, a soft drum tapping on
and on under the swaying music, like fate
telling you time it was slipping away, You
couldn't keep it from going, already gone
just a bit in the telling you so, new
drum-beats later and later. Seemed why the tune
always was sad, with those strange little eastern
twirls that ended on notes that were stranger, and soon
all would be gone, it said. Somehow this silken
fading melody weaving its farewell criss-cross
was lovely because it sang its own loss.
CULTURE SPLIT
Benny Goodman couldn't play the clarinet
like Reginald Kell did. How could playing swing
make you know how to play real music? And yet
he'd done a record of Mozart. You could argue
all the way back from school about soppy Bing
Crosby with Norman, who claimed Harry James knew
how to handle his trumpet better than all
players in 'classical bands'. It was so plain,
for the classical music could really call
up all those powerful feelings, all that pain
and that pleasure. It knew all about the real
of the world. How could swing get to what you feel?
'NO TUNES, THANK YOU!'
Was a time that you'd gather round the wireless
specially to listen to the new Vaughan Williams.
All my musical friends were there. What keenness
then in us all to hear genius the first time
you could ever have heard it. The radiogram's
volume was up and the BBC gave prime
waveband quality too. So the Sixth began.
Robert's face dropped. There was a singable tune
in the first movement! How could the grand old man
let him down thus? So we pretended to swoon
with our heads rocking to it. What joys you missed
being so stiffly, so purely, a modernist!
RICHARD ADDINSELL'S WARSAW CONCERTO
In the Warsaw Concerto there were very
good tunes, yet this was a pretend concerto.
Weren't they good tunes then? Some people were sniffy,
saying it could only be imitation,
sort of cheating, no more than a so-and-so
substitute piece, a queer, cunning quotation
from Rachmaninoff, Schumann or whoever,
making it false like Van Megeeren's copies
of Vermeer. But the tunes weren't the same. Sombre
singable tunes. Ask who could write melodies
that could sound just as sad? They'd not his talents.
Was a pity he didn't write three movements.
DANSE MACABRE
Was a waltz, but how menacing! Was warning
you of a frightful climax of sharp terror,
but they gleefully swung round and round, fawning,
grinning with certainty that you would be there
with them one day, or one night. One slight error,
down you would go in the grave. The biggest scare
was to hear in their wildest of glee the sour
tang of their misery, ghostly loneliness,
which their capture of you for a cringing hour
would part-assuage like a drug. Their greediness,
giddiness whirled you about. At last, at cockcrow,
for a time they were summoned, and let you go.
RAVEL AND JESUS
For the Dorothy Sayers' Man Born to be
King was the music that was special. A slow
and mysterious tune for Christ's destiny,
there in a foreign land, in time out of sight.
Was Ravel's 'Introduction and Allegro':
violins, harp, clarinet, flute. Strange delight
in its secret unfoldings. Was like the dance
Strauss wrote for Salome, winding and wreathing
stealthy eastern disguises. A sort of trance
held you, while melody sang with your breathing
and the harp plucked each note from your heart, again,
again. Forgot about Jesus and His pain.
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
Science hadn't caught up with music. The text-
book, yes, had chapters on sine-waves, resonance,
tuning-forks, standing-waves — turn over the next
page, you were back to mechanics. A dawn
began Daphnis and Chloe : a radiance
spread, overwhelming you. With notes you were borne
to a world newly made. The record you could
put on again and again — it happened again
and again. So a science of the mind should
try to find out. It wasn't out of our ken,
surely? Never discussed. Like nobody dared.
Was as though the sun rose and nobody cared.
'CLAIR DE LUNE'
You would hear Walter play Debussy's 'Clair de
Lune'. About moonlight, it said, but it was lost
love, for a beauty now cold. Thought it shared a
rhythm with water, a stream halting downwards
to a silent lake, or crystals sparkling in frost
one by another as you pace an orchard's
winter bareness. It had a more powerful
part where the longing grew painful through knowing
it would never regain that most wonderful
moment — What moment? It was beauty going
or already gone. No use — it wouldn't stay,
or say why we were tantalized in that way.
DEBUSSY, PETITE SUITE: MENUET
Could ask 'Where?' and just 'What?' was going on in
music like that. And then 'When?' as well. Dancing
of a beautiful child or elf, a fountain
plashing in southern sunlight, but long ago
or else far far ahead. Something entrancing
glimpsed for a moment outside your reach, and, lo,
at once coming up close before you could see
what it was, there in a heavenly summer
in a garden of paradise. You were free,
happy, amazed, but it teased you, a flutter
of a butterfly's wings in your face, flowing
always sadly away, most sure in its going.
L'APRÈS-MIDI D'UN FAUNE
Seemed Debussy's L'Après-midi d'un Faune
played out a long farewell to something that had
happened out of time, in a summery zone,
echoing sadly from far away. I would
listen, drawn to that afternoon. A dryad,
hidden by stillness in a shadowy wood,
played again and again a beguiling air,
taunting your memory like a lost fragrance.
set you yearning and yearning. You must beware,
though. Drew close only to find your patience
tried, the tune reappearing further off still,
like a memory hurting, trapping your will.
BODY PARADOXES
If you twisted your tongue sideways and then ran
it round your teeth, it was as if your jaws turned
upwards, and yet a feel with your hand would scan
them as normal. On a train if you left
your arms folded too tight too long, you soon learned,
waking up, something had gone in for a theft
of them both — They weren't there! Was like a cocoon:
you could look out from it, but what 'it' was you'd
not a notion, but move them a fraction, soon
there they were back again. One didn't exclude
all the other's illicit phenomenon,
as if you could be two and yet count as one.
KINESTHETIC IMAGERY
'Kinesthetic' the imagery they call it now:
a ghost body for me. They couldn't see what
I was feeling with, nor knew at all how
I could shrink to a pin-size, climbing over
my own finger, which let me, nor how I got
to a giant whose finger-touch was grosser
than a factory-chimney collapsing on
them all, none of them suffering any harm
one could see. I could ride on an electron,
I could roll the whole world around on my palm,
I could spin the whole universe around me.
I was safe, and space-time could never drown me.
BEADS AND BALL-BEARINGS
Put my hand on the beads in the tray: they slipped,
tickling your palm, and it rolled without stopping.
Just think — standing on beads you'd find they tripped
you — you'd be flying and you would not know where;
if you fell, you would slide, and no use hopping
sideways to safety or something. I would stare
at ball-bearings, that ran inside grooves, and were
kept in their places by little shaped riders —
saw them somersault, clown-like, whiz to a blur
round in a ring, and how smooth it felt, gliders
that would let bikes go faster and overtake.
If you don't put the oil in, they crack and break.
DELIRIUM
In delirium, huge weights pressed upon me,
bulky as swedes twice as big as a human
being. In them and out of them, my body
trapped underneath, yet they seemed to be brittle
as a cuttlefish bone, or like skeleton
puffballs, cement fungi. I was so little
in a world of oppression of me, for their
only determining purpose was to hold
me down tightly just there, to force the nightmare
solely on me for eternity, to mould
all my head to that mass. My cries became shrill:
'Don't let her marry that man from over the hill!'
SMELLS
Every house, every room had a different
smell. It was polish sometimes, sometimes soap.
In the bedroom at Auntie's it was fragrant —
powder and perfume. At the farmer's sweetish
wafts of milk from the clean churns. Sawn wood, new rope.
Paraffin, back of Uncle John's. A seacold goldfish
bowl at Joe's. And a stinging tomato scent
filling a greenhouse. But sometimes you couldn't
give a name to the air, all sorts of smells blent
smooth into one — books, carpet, wood — you wouldn't
notice anything strange, but there it would stay
as a part of your breathing, part of your day.
SMELLS ON THE ROAD FROM LEIGH
Cycling home late through Leigh and Westhoughton, I
breathed all the smells that blew across the road:
the half-sweet scent of petrol, medicine-high,
headachy, beckoning you to sniff more; cold,
heavy, cabbagy smells, decay-damp, that flowed
up from the drainage ditch, and deadening, old
as Chat Moss; choking smoke in rumbling tumble
down from a railway bridge, speaking platform and
glazed brick wall, iridescent gleam on clinker; menthol,
peppermint, from the sweet factory; the bland
warmth of baked bread; and, from power-station arcs,
smells that caught up a fear — burnt rubber and sparks.
PERFUME
You found ladies used perfume. They would dab it,
using their little fingers, behind their ears.
I would wonder why they put it there: a bit
dabbed on the end of the nose would be nearer
to the men. Like a rose, a scent that appears
sweet to attract the bee, makes it carrier
of the pollen. The bee doesn't mind. Nectar
is what it needs. And the beauty of a girl
seemed to turn into scent at once, or either
lilac and rose were her, and you smelled its swirl
all around her. It wasn't a trap, they said.
It was your fault to let yourself be misled.
TASTES, SMELLS, TIME
Taste of lime juice and soda-water, and I am
sitting at home in the kitchen at Christmas —
better, at Christmases, while in actual time
sitting at home in this kitchen fifty years
later. Walking along the blank street, careless,
unprepared, thinking only of what occurs
now or will, I smelt sawdust, freshly sawn,
walking now as well in 1936
to see Daddy so accurate with his hand
downing the dwindling-spreading saw. The matrix
of strict time is involuntarily crossed
and I'm here in a place that I haven't lost.
A BELATED ADVERTISEMENT FOR A LIQUIDATED CAFÉ CHAIN
A high ceiling of shiny white squares with thin
wood frames around them, and shop girls seen behind
sloping glass counters, both taste of walnuts in
ice cream with maple syrup. Wide door open
to the street and criss-crossing people remind
me of that wonderful taste. It was heaven,
for this sweetness was new — 'Maple'. Manchester
buses that passed and paused were maple; where we
sat, a little round table in brown lacquer
set on a chequerboard floor, this too for me
turned to maple taste. Those sights and sounds seem
nothing but Lyons' Maple Walnut Ice Cream.