What a beautiful morning - looks great for all the people at Bamfest in Bedale - hope youre all having a great time. Im printing out some new poems for the trip to The Georgian Theatre Richmond tonight where I will strut and fret my hour or two. Looking forward to the drive across the Dales. Charlie Roth arrives today for the Settle gig tomorrow so we may have a chance for a brew, a choc chip cookie and a chinwag before I hit the road. This is Rock and Roll babes - but not as we knew it. Heres one I might be reading - see how it goes The Shipping Forecast After the show, leaving behind the brassy warmth Of smoky singing rooms, I rode The blue tar roads alone; Nights beyond count I watched the reeling land Spool past as I drove on, dry eyed and tired, The rolling ribbon winding out And leading me back home. The towns and cities left behind I would cross the country miles and see The Long Mynd hooded with a cowl of stars, The wastes of Saddleworth Moor by snowlight Reaching out in endless folds and swells, A bleached and noiseless world. Frost on Kinder, on Shap – fog So thick you could have knitted it. I stopped on Dunmail Rise one autumn night, The land below all lime-lit by a Harvest Moon, The only sounds in that still world my breath And the cooling ticking of the car. Countless miles and countless times, Gig done, heading for home, The radio on, I would comb Always for company the airwaves; Searching through the static and the morse The ethereal confetti of the universe – Stations coming and going, babel babble, Washing like the shorewaves of the sea – I trawled the airwaves for the comfort of the human voice, And settled always on the BBC. I would follow it until the very death, Not hitting the “Off” switch until The Nunc Dimitis: the Shipping Forecast, That litany of hope and fear, Those words that painted endless seas All about the island of my mind: “Viking, Forties, Tyne, Tiree, Cromarty, Col, Lundy, Sole, Shannon, Rockall, Hebrides…” And as the cats’ eyes reeled Under my wheels I would – Snug in my own small, warm, tin craft – See in my mind’s eye sailors stood on watch Out on the widowmaking seas, Half lit in the wheelhouse, Smoking, drinking sweet mahogany tea, Leaning on the binnacle, eyes locked On the radar’s emerald scrying bowl, And all ears full-cocked For the trusted London voice, the oracle, “Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Biscay, Fastnet, Finistere…” A mantra calling through the night More deadly serious than any prayer.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 07:33:27 +0000
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