After Midnight

Leaf 295 – Homeward Bound

 

For about a year or so, when I was around the age of nineteen, I had a job as a barman on the other side of town. When I finished my evening shift, after midnight, I often used to walk home. It was a long walk of several miles. I’m not sure now why I never caught the bus. I certainly took the bus there sometimes. It might have been because the buses had stopped running by that time of night, or possibly I preferred to save the bus fare, and more likely get some fresh air after working all evening in a smoky pub. Whatever the reason was, one night in particular sticks in my mind. Because on that night, when I was walking down the deserted High Street, I found myself following a fox. The fox had glanced over its shoulder at me momentarily, but was clearly unconcerned and simply carried on walking ahead of me. The hidden claws of her feet clicking on the metalled road while she walked. Anyone looking out of a window might have thought I was out walking my dog. It was a magical moment of nocturnal connection. At the end of the High Street the fox slipped into the trees by the bridge over the river, where I turned and followed Bridge Street onwards to home. It was only after I wrote the following poem and re-read it that I realised it could easily be read in a different – perhaps, more risqué and seedy – sort of way. But I assure the reader, my hometown wasn’t that kind of place, nor am I that kind of person.

 

 

After midnight –

through the empty town

following a fox.

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

Terminates Here

Leaf 294 – Homeward Bound

 

Metropolitan Line A-Stock Train (Amersham Museum)

Smells and sounds are often the unexpected evocative echoes of the past. Growing up in the outer suburbs of northwest London, the Metropolitan Line was our lifeline into the city. This poem is an attempt to capture an aural recollection of what it was like arriving at Baker Street Station, either en route to work or heading out for a night on the town amid the bright lights of the West End. It was written as a nostalgic response to returning to Baker Street after many years away, the sounds and scents of the place instantly transcending time.

 

 

THIS TRAIN TERMINATES HERE

 

Silver carriages

kinking to the curve –

whispering, pneumatic kisses.

 

Echoing

along the platform,

a sharp screech –

rumbling out into

long rattles and clanks.

 

Easing into

a Baker Street siding,

doors sliding into a sigh.

 

 

 

 

Ron Embleton - Travelling to Work (Story of Newspapers, 1968)

Moonless Tide

Leaf 293 – Reflections

 

Anne Packard - Rowboat on Blue (1976)

I’ve always enjoyed tales of pirates and treasure islands, of tall ships and smugglers haunting out-of-the-way river inlets and rugged coves. This poem attempts to evoke something of the spirit of such tales, especially as I encountered them when I was a child holidaying in Cornwall each summer.

 

 

MOONLESS TIDE

 

A lone lantern –

listens for sculls slipped

in a shadowy cove.

 

 

 

 

from 'A Cornish Smuggler' by Captain Harry Carter (1900)

Full English

Leaf 292 – Looking Back

 

The place where I lived in Stoke Newington, above a shop on the High Street, was in the heart of the local Turkish community. I used to love eating in the Turkish restaurants there, where the food was always wholesome, healthy, and heartily generous – as well as surprisingly cheap. But at weekends, there was one place which I always liked to go – just for a change.

 

 

Eating

a Full English –

at the Bodrum Café.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credit: Time Out/Pinterest

Walthamstow Marshes

Leaf 291 – Looking Back

 

While living on London’s Stoke Newington High Street, some twenty-five years ago now, nearby Walthamstow Marshes was the place where I would go to get some rugged refreshment in the form of a long walk and a lungful or two of fresh air at the weekends – whatever the season, and whatever the weather.

 

 

WALTHAMSTOW MARSHES

 

Crunching gravel

along the Lea –

weathering the winds

rippling through reeds

on the low-lying marshes.

 

Metal wheels grind and

screech along the viaduct,

rattling rails; slow trains

slinking out of the city,

while birds take wing.

 

My foot thuds echo back

along the boardwalk;

the breeze slowly lightens,

heading homeward –

with a heart refreshed.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credits: N. Chadwick/Geograph

Clissold Park

Leaf 290 – Looking Back

 

Clissold Park - The Lake

There’s something especially enchanting about long summer evenings. Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always enjoyed them. Finding a nice spot to do so has always been something I seem to have automatically done – largely because, ever since leaving home at the age of twenty-one, I’ve never been lucky enough to have my own garden. When I lived in Stoke Newington, Clissold Park was always a favourite place, particularly by the ponds. There are two ponds in the park: Beckmere and Runtzmere. Named after Joesph Beck and John Runtz, two public servants and philanthropists who managed to save the park for the local population back in the late nineteenth century. I have lots of fond memories of sitting by Beckmere after a day at work, watching tortoises basking in the sun, while a tern flapped over and fished the waters below. It was always a very peaceful spot. I often found it hard to tear myself away and head home for dinner.

 

 

CLISSOLD PARK

 

Summer evenings –

a book and a bench

by the pond.

 

 

 

 

Rio, Dalston

Leaf 289 – Looking Back

 

Marc Gooderham - Rio Cinema, Dalston

Following on from the leaf posted previously, this poem is the second in a series of verses to follow, which look back to when I was living in London’s Stoke Newington at the turn of the century. That’s a strange phrase! – In my mind, that really means the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Or, at least, that’s what it always used to mean, I suppose. Perhaps it would make more sense for me to have said ‘the turn of the millennium,’ or ‘Y2K.’ – It was a good time to be young. Life was challenging in a lot of regards, but I look back on it now with a large degree of fondness.

 

 

RIO, DALSTON

 

Strolling home

from a summer matinee,

under peach-hued clouds.

 

 

 

 

Marc Gooderham - Rio Cinema, Dalston