Time Flues (Revisited)
Time Flues (Revisited)
I spent my early years,
Gazing on a scene
Of chimneys and smoke stacks,
Wool-mills and mines.
Chimneys, touching the sky,
Cathedral organs,
Built of blackened stone,
Playing worn-out tunes,
Cast their shadow on the
Folk in the village below.
Concrete cooling tower,
With clouds of vapour
Billowing out
From the egg-timer skyscraper.
Clouds that gathered
The grit and the dust and the grime
Blown from the mines, and the spoil heaps,
Pyramids built in my lifetime.
The spoil heap near the park, spoiled the view,
And its grit and its dust and its grime
Settled on Mum’s weekly laundry,
She pegged out on the washing line.
The grit and the grime and the coal dust,
As though ‘ magnet-drawn’ to my neck
Meant a regular wash with a loofah.
I washed, and then Mum came to check.
Our house, a back-to-back,
‘One-up-one-down’,
One of the thousands
Dotted round town,
Each with a chimney
That belched, 9 months a year,
The dirty and the sulphurous smoke
That buggered up the atmosphere,
That came from burning the dampened coal
That fed the fire.
(Put another lump on!)
A future generation’s funeral pyre!
Fires burned through the night,
Fire-grate banked with nutty-slack,
Pouring out its night-time smoke
Just as filthy, just as black.
The night-time smoke and grime
Fell on the clothes on the line
That my Mum left pegged out,
Come hail or rain or shine.
The dirty and the sulphurous smoke
Would mix with Calder mists,
Making thick and swirling fogs,
Or choking murderous smogs.
Today, the power station’s gone,
The mills and mines no more,
The chimneys, smoke and smog,
Placed neatly in the history drawer.
Flattened coal-fired houses,
With washing lines that spanned the street,
Made way for bijou dwellings
Warmed by central heat.
My children’s children will never learn
To start a fire with twists of newspaper;
Firewood, and a shovelful of coal.
They will never know
A draw-tin, or a poker, or a ‘coil-oil’.
Will they care? I think not.
And who pegs clothes out any more?
(A tumble dryer’s a must)
Even though the air is clear of
The grit and the grime and the dust.
p.s. I still wash my neck, at least once a week.
Anthony Emmerson
Thu 20th Aug 2009 11:25
Hi Stephen,
After seeing Cynthia's comment (with which I agree entirely) I came back to this to see what you might do with it. To be honest, I feel you could tighten it up much more. If it was mine I would aim to cut the length by at least half. I know it sounds drastic, but by losing some of the familiar and cliched lines/images you concentrate the effect. Some phrases are so familiar that we almost "pre-read" them before we get to the line - sort of "take them as read" if you like. I think you ought to ask yourself a question - what is this poem's message? What do you want it to say to the reader? Is it something they already know - or do you want to present an idea to them in a new way? Just to give you some examples:
The second line of the poem - "Gazing on a scene" What do these three words actually say? To condense it might take only one word - "seeing." Or, we could assume that you were aware of your environment as a child, and lose the line completely!
Tenth line - "Folk in the village below." We might assume that since we are hearing about mines/factories that the workforce lives somewhere nearby. You tell us there's a village - you needn't also tell us that folk live there.
In the fifth stanza: "Settled on Mum’s weekly laundry,
She pegged out on the washing line." - The second of these two lines is just filler - wouldn't we know that she had to dry the washing?
I could offer more examples, but I won't. I would suggest you think of it as if you were preparing a cordon bleu reduction sauce and reduce it slowly and carefully down to the very essence of its flavour. Throw away all those parts we can take as read, all the ecvess words which don't add anything (forget about the rhyme for the moment) and force it to say exactly and precisely the message/feeling/image you wish it to portray - in as few words as possible.
There are some good lines and images here:
Cathedral organs
Playing worn-out tunes
banked with nutty-slack,
Placed neatly in the history drawer.
washing lines that spanned the street
start a fire with twists of newspaper;
draw-tin, or a poker, or a ‘coil-oil’.
who pegs clothes out any more?
but at the moment they are languishing in the depths of the bran-tub (I know you will know what a bran-tub is!) Take them out, polish them and put them in a more fitting setting - let them shine. Read it aloud to yourself - record it and play it back if possible. Pretend it is something written by someone else, and that you've never heard/read it before. Listen for the words that make your ears prick up, that tickle the hairs on the back of your neck, the ideas and images which move you. Cut out every surplus word, phrase and idea that doesn't speak to you. Then take what's left and reassemble it into something that sparkles.
I'm sorry if I sound overly harsh or critical. This isn't awful poetry, but I believe, with more care and thought, most of us are capable of writing much better poetry. That requires us to apply a magnifying glass to every single word we use, and for those words to fight each other for the right to be included in our work. Seconds out . . .
Regards,
A.E.