Unsure about adding to the flow of words about Mrs Thatcher, I thought I'd share two unpublished poems from the upcoming book that connect to her and her ideas. The first is from a sequence called The Dunno Elegies that considers (if that's something poems can do, I hope it is) various sites around the North East and their transformations, regenerations and degradations, using the recurrent image of angels for the spirits that once walked and worked in those places. It is partly an extended pun on Rilke's Duino Elegies.
This poem references the place where Thatcher did her famous 'walk in the wilderness', perhaps the closest she came, briefly, to thinking desolation might not be a viable way of carrying on. It also draws on memories of visiting the offices of Tees Valley Regeneration, on that very land, surrounded by call centres and colleges. Is it a place or a community, beyond being a site? That we even need to ask the question is part of Thatcher's damaging legacy.
The 2nd poem takes a more tangential and playful approach.
Dunno Elegy 2
Teesdale,
Thornaby
To walk this wilderness you must commit
to the past, to taking of evidence
from the future. You must stand prepared
to stare down demons that draw strength from dirt,
the difficult to leave behind dirt.
Head Wrightson spilt blood here, ran it off
into the river and called it rust, or money.
These call centres exist. But they are blank
as acetates laid over a map in a museum,
blank as minds of reluctant students.
Bombs could fall and no adrenalin would flow.
George Stephenson’s ghost stalks the corridors,
pulled in all directions by fear of kidnap.
Stockton chains him in, Darlington too and
the wrong side of the tracks by the Tyne.
He watches over business studies degrees
and daydreams of Timothy Hackworth
bashing metal up country, near enough forgotten.
They made things here. The she-devil walked here
clutching her handbag and nearly said sorry.
Suicides the Durham bank of the river
brought more than those souls washed up in
Yorkshire.
Becoming angels left their heads bloated.
The streets are dotted with students hunting a pub.
The revolution will not be televised.
There is no song to this place, no rhythm,
it is all straight lines and ambient backwash.
Every call has an answer, an even tone
blanketing all the noise that once was here.
Recycled air turns solid after twelve hours
with hardly a calorie burnt away.
The beaters and welders and handtool-burners
gather by the river to fish and to watch.
They talk of bait and boredom, of long years
watching, of the buildings and the quiet
drawn like curtains over the banging they hear.
Sparks flew but a spark now would stand out,
bright on the soft stone and white wash.
This place is all curves and circles, not sparks.
When this circle reaches back to its beginning,
you can feel the bombs drop. The weights
were heavy they used to move things here.
In the offices of Tees Valley Regeneration
a model appeals to the unseen gods.
It is an idea of heaven gone mad. It is innocent
boxes and balls that nothing can balance.
The angelic welders walk around us.
They are not concerned at our planning,
give permission for nothing, just spit
on the polished floors, breathless
from their sweated effort regardless.
They make no announcements about scale,
or what shape it should be, no prototypes
or macquettes can be put under glass
to start conversations in reception.
They do not know any of the answers.
They are not waiting to be shown through.
We are left with the questions, smooth
and unrewarding to the touch as iron.
There is no give here, nothing but
resistance to be found even now.
Everything is a trap for these angels.
Documentary
I
knew what would happen next.
I
walked out backwards into the yard.
There
was a huge onion on the step.
It
smelt of acrid string and Thatcherism.
I
burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably.
If
you’d have asked me why, I’d have said nothing.
I
was incoherent and uncomplaining.
How
the hell could an onion smell of a political doctrine?
On
estates to the north of Stockton they would tell you.
They
would open the shutters slightly.
They
would put out a fist to meet your nose.
They
would explain that there is little difference.
They
were used to finding onions on their doorsteps.
I
was not, I was downright puzzled into anger by it.
I’d
have turned round and wormed my way back in again.
But
words cannot be unspoken.
Besides,
there was now a chicken on my doorstep.
