2023 Door Nine: Night Flight

Night Flight

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking,”
Those familiar words usually preceding bad news:
Delay, inclement conditions, engine failure, turbulence,
so you grin in advance of your subversion,
“According to local time by our destination,
and according to the clock on our panel,
it is just turned midnight, therefore I’d like to be the first
to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from all of the team.”

The people who will clap when you land break into applause;
some sleep right through it but one man raises an eyemask
at the disturbance, before smiling as he realises why;
in the backrows, some, who have had more from the trolley
than others, try to get a burst of a carol going,
it doesn’t catch on and it doesn’t matter.

This is the highlight of your jet-set life,
the pay-off of the airmiles, as the cabin crew high-five in the aisles
and you slip the switch back into cruise control, and smile;
as you start to come inland,
every seaside town is a selection box,
the dual carriageway a string of festoon bulbs,
each village a conurbation of baubles; from up here,
everyone’s got their lights up this year,

and you smile as you remember yourself as a child,
walking home from Midnight Mass,
scanning the night sky for blinking lights
as if it might be Father Christmas in his sleigh,
and you didn’t mind, even if they turned out to just be planes.

---

I went swimming tonight, and tried to think of a poem that might sum up my last 24 hours – the Mayor’s Carol Service, a trip to The Crafty Pint (beloved local micropub, now with its own baubles), waking up hungover, if not still a little tipsy, and fending it off with a two-hour dog walk, a wander round the Christmas Market, leftover pizza for breakfast, Liverpool coming from behind to beat Crystal Palace (allez allez allezzzzz!), hosing down a bit of old carpet (don’t ask) and then a trip to Lidl – but despite this embarassment of delights, all of which I enjoyed greatly, no poem was forthcoming.

Something about being around, or in, water though really inspires me, so by the time I was towelling myself down I had already started this poem; why a swimming pool at a health club on the outskirts of Witney got me thinking about pilots, I’m not sure – I think looking at my legs underwater made me think of a sinking cross-channel ferry, which in turn made me think about the ferries that must chug across la Manche as Christmas Eve turns to Christmas Day, and then – moving higher up the stratosphere – the planes that must criss-cross the skies that same night. And from there, I was here.

I think this song also owes a slight subconscious debt to a beautiful song called “I Work on Christmas Day”, by Whoa Melodic, which is available on another amazing Christmas album from the record label WIAIWYA (who I also sang the praises of last Sunday.) Give it a listen.

I like flying. A bit like being on the train, I find it a very poetic subject that makes me want to write something (and as with being on the train, I very rarely write anything decent when I try to.) I try to get out of the country at least once a year. I think it makes me appreciate England more to come back to it. Some years, I need all the help I can get in appreciating England, but then maybe that’s unfair – maybe it’s actually just the idiots running it (into the ground.)

I also like drinking on planes. I went to New York once and got accidentally quite pissed by the time I landed. When coming back from work trips to Frankfurt a few years ago, I’d often order a glass of wine, or prosecco, on my return journey, as a little reward for a successful trade show. It made me feel more like a high-flying international businessman, when in reality I was a fairly low-flying editorial assistant who couldn’t really feel below his knees. Good old Easyjet.

Luci and I have a friend who’s a pilot. He often talks about cocktails during Mexican layovers. It sounds like quite a plush lifestyle, but I’m not sure it’s for me. I struggle enough with driving, and at least with driving you’re less likely to either get blown up or crash into the ocean. I know that’s a pretty low risk when flying, too, but I think once it had happened once, that would be enough. Sometimes I think it would be a cool job though, even despite the hijackings.

A reminder, before I sign off, that if you’re enjoying this year’s Poetry Advent Calendar, you can pay it forward by giving a little bit of dosh to Asylum Welcome, via the Poetry Advent Calendar JustGiving page. They do such vital work and help vulnerable people feel safe, secure and part of our community, which is surely what we all want for each other and ourselves. Thank you to those who have chipped in so far, I love you for it.

Come fly with me. Sixteen days to go…

Owen x

2023 Door Two: 2,000 Miles

2,000 Miles

2,000 miles. It’s very far. From here,
that’s Nuuk, in Greenland,
simultaneously Scandinavia and North America,
where the manngqqak falls on the timber chapel roof
and artificial turf, the fishing fleet frozen in,
where the permafrost glistens as it pulls back
from the blue-eyed grassland, as they sing from the throat,

2,000 miles. It’s very far. Go south,
to Nicosia, Cyprus, the cobwebs solid in the olive trees
and flurries of χιόνι and kar in the DMZ,
icicles on the partition walls and all and sundry
wondering how it can be this cold on an island in the Med,
and yet from the bars and the churches they sing

2,000 miles. It’s very far. Out east,
in Yemva, they’re shovelling the concrete clear
and melting the снег on the station steps,
a couple waiting for their conscript son
to come back from a war they don’t support,
a candle lit until he’s home.
White and grey as far as the eye can see,
but under their visible breath they sing

Like us: 2,000 miles. It’s very far,
but beneath the North star we’re all singing
the same songs to each other, even though
we don’t think we have anything in common, but snow.

---

I’m starting to sense how this Advent Calendar is going to work – have a decent idea in the morning, procrastinate all day and go off it by the evening, but then writing it because you’ve run out of time to come up with anything better. Still, at least I’m having ideas at all, and I quite like that today’s Door follows on, sort of, from yesterday’s, with its musical origins and search for what unites us all.

And OK, perhaps I need to spray a bit more antifreeze on my rose-tinted glasses, as this has ended up a quite simplistic spin of the globe, and I worry a bit that I’ve gone a bit Cecil Rhodes with my fairly wide-eyed innocent skewering of cultures beyond my own. No disrespect is intended to the good citizens of Nuuk, Nicosia or Yemva – I’d like to see all these places in person one day, and maybe then I’ll write something that captures the soul of these beautiful municipalities a bit more accurately, a bit less generically.

But it’s the thought (fort) that counts, and today has been spent thinking about those as far away as the narrator of The Pretenders’ iconic Christmas song, and whether they’ve heard it, and whether they too are thinking about those 2,000 miles away. In one direction, that’ll be here, which is nice, and in the other, who knows. It’s an endless game of pass-it-on leapfrog around the whole globe and back again. It is very far, but it’s not that far that we can’t think of each other and be glad, whatever we do – or don’t – have in common. We’re all the same distance apart.

(I did check, by the way – those two cities and one town are all, give or take, 2,000 miles from Witney, where I live and grew up. I had to do a little bit of rounding but you’d be close enough, certainly within a shuttle bus ride of the town centre, and allowing for the curvature of the Earth, I don’t think that’s too bad. As I say, it’s the thought that counts.)

Talking of which, I’ll keep the rest of it in headspace. Hope you liked the poem.

I’ll think of you, wherever you go. Twenty-three days to go.

Owen x

PS If someone in Greenland reads this blog for the first time, I’ll be absolutely delighted – I’m trying to pick up at least one viewer in every territory on Earth and am about 33% of the way there; on which note, hello and рождество құтты болсын to my new reader in Kazakhstan…

2021 Door Eight: Jolly Joe Ho Ho’s Ultimate Christmas Crackers (by Anna Soden)

Jolly Joe Ho Ho’s Ultimate Christmas Crackers

I got the train home in 2019
Half past 8 on Christmas Eve
Liverpool to York
It was quiet even though I’d got to the station 40 minutes early
Certain to be met with last minute commuters.
(I wasn’t so got a Katsu curry while I waited)
2000 miles came on my Christmas playlist
It just fit somehow
(Even though I’m well aware Liverpool to York isn’t 2000 miles)
I played it over and over
I wanted to walk over the station bridge with it playing in my ears
Have my euphoric Christmas-film-home-coming moment
But I was stood waiting in the vestibule for the doors to open
Longer than I expected
I had to restart it so I didn’t run out of song.
Every time I hear that slow fade up onto electric guitar
I think about that Christmas Eve train ride

We played Now That’s What I Call Christmas in a theatre bar in 2017
We started the CD from the top whenever we opened pre-show, 
And from the top again at the interval
I don’t think we ever made it past track 9
Track 1 was a song called Not Tonight Santa
It’s Girls Aloud, it’s awful. I love it.
Pumped around the foyer twice a day
Four times on a two show day
“I’ll let you peak inside my stocking if you show me yours”
An immediate classic.
The audible cue that it was time to serve over priced Mulled Wine from a sticky vat,
To hoards of theatre goers in their biggest coats.

2018 is Bandaid
An outrageous song
My friend walked into work
Every single day that December
Chanting
“Well tonight thank god it’s them instead of you”
Like a football hooligan in a Christmas jumper
The most impeccable Bono impression I’ve ever heard
WELL TANIGHT THANK GOD IT’S THEURM, INSTEAD OF YHOOOO
I ate a sausage roll and a mince pie every single day for breakfast that month
I can still see his arms outstretched to the sky as he belted it out,
and taste that pastry grease whenever I hear Bono’s interesting choice of vowel sounds on that song.

Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses
It was 2020 and all I did was cry at The Snowman and sit on the sofa that day
Listened to it for the 400th time
And I still couldn’t tell you the lyrics
(To be fair there is a lot of them)
The perfect soundtrack to accompany the quiet night in of Christmas Days
Normal Christmas’ low key friend
Who pops round to say Merry Christmas, then quickly leaves again
There was still roast potatoes and we still opened presents
I just didn’t bother to shower that year

It was December the 1st 2016
North London next to the North circular
not the North Pole
When an advert calendar arrived in the post
It took some assembling
I think we put in a special nail for it to hang on the wall
Risky business in a rented student house, but worth it
Step Into Christmas by Elton John was playing from my battered Acer laptop
I’d never heard that song before
“Surely you know the words!
Step Into Christmas
Let’s join together
Something something something
Forever and ever”
The advent calendar had Reece’s pieces in
We made Yorkshire puddings from scratch
They were like muffins
Incredible for soaking up gravy.

Pressing play on Christmas songs
A quick and easy way to time travel
I hear some synthetic recorded Christmas bells
Blare through my headphones
And I’m right back there
In another song
In another city
In another group of people
In another Christmas

But did (The Muppets) Christmas Carol teach us nothing?
We have to live in the present.
But it is difficult when my Spotify Christmas Playlist
(Jolly Joe Ho Ho’s Ultimate Christmas Crackers)
Is a treasure trove of Christmas past
So I sit, pressing fast forward through these songs I know all too well
Opening my advent calendar(s)
And warming my belly up for the roast potato heavy time of the year
Marvelling that it’s the 8th of December and I haven’t eaten a mince pie yet
Thinking about the Christmas’ gone and the Christmas’ yet to come
And I wonder
What’s this years song?

---

We’ve officially ticked off the first week of Advent 2021, so it feels like the perfect time to hand over the reins of the Poetry Advent Calendar to our first guest poet of the year, and I’m absolutely delighted that the wonderful Anna Soden has agreed to be that guest poet!

Me and Anna met a few years ago, through the mutual acquaintance of Mr. Joe Feeney, who I think it’s fair to say we’re both in love with, albeit in slightly different ways. I think the first time I met Anna was at a cabaret night at the Prince Albert on Eversholt Street, in September 2015. Somebody was playing guitar dressed as a spider, the erstwhile Scotney Rascals were headlining while absolutely, indecipherably hammered. It was a fun night, I think, and while any further details of it have escaped me, I am very very glad Anna and Joe remain in my life. Over to her…

“When Owen asked me to write a Christmas poem in a day, I panicked. I’m on day 9 of COVID isolation so finding it difficult to think about anything other than hours of watching Greys Anatomy and snacks. I’m meant to be doing a pantomime right now, which is super Christmassy, but I have the plague, and am gutted about it, so had to get the festive juices flowing. I put on my trusty Christmas playlist, and here we are. All credit to Joe Feeney, who curated the playlist, and gave it the iconic name. If he had his way, he would play Christmas songs all year round. I found him at a party mid September once choreographing a dance to Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time- but that didn’t make it into the poem.

It’s messy and it doesn’t rhyme, sorry about that. I hope you like it anyway.“

I most certainly do.

As Anna says, as well as being a terrific poet, she’s also an actor, and in proper festive style is to be found this Advent treading the boards at the lovely Chipping Norton Theatre. So if you’re looking for a bit of classic Christmas culture, get yourselves over and see Rapunzel!

Continuing the spirit of generosity, our Guest Poet has also provided the links for the eponymous playlist and for the Bono (“Bono Impression credited is a wonderful man called Danny Millar, and it isn’t Christmas until I hear it“) so if you’re likewise stuck indoors, you can fill your cowboy boots with them too. I’m dead chuffed – thanks, my friend.

Break a leg! Seventeen days to go…

Owen x

2021 Door Five: Kim’s Game (AKA From The Driving Seat)

Kim’s Game (AKA From The Driving Seat)

Old pubs and new self-storage units,
The Holy Ghost in the rearview mirror,
Wind turbines lit by a break in the clouds,
A sign saying PUT BRITISH PORK ON YOUR FORK.

Bristol Kebab House, a long way from home.
ONE LOVE RIP DJ DEREK painted on the end of a terrace,
Clumps of mistletoe blotting the bare branches of trees,
A man selling carved animals in a lay-by;

An inflatable Father Christmas in Frenchay,
A sign for Keynsham as Echo Bridge plays,
The cathedrals, campaniles and communications masts of Bristol
Competing on a suddenly 3D skyline;

Small parades of takeaways and undertakers,
The source of the Thames,
The arrogance of evergreens against their golden brothers
beyond the hard shoulder.

The bollards by the pub in the next village, painted like infantrymen,
The back of a horsebox, the Hengrove bus,
The upturned hull of Temple Meads
And you, halfsnoozing in the passenger seat next to me,
Beautiful.

---

When all else fails, you can’t beat a good list poem. The literary equivalent of not just throwing enough mud at a wall to see what sticks, but then scooping up the mud that didn’t stick and doing something with it anyway. I lost faith in that metaphor halfway through, slightly.

Today we were returning from Wells (see yesterday’s Door), having spent the morning having a relaxed breakfast with friends, and in the absence of knowing what else to write about I started making mental notes of things through the windscreen as we wove our way across the Mendips, along the Avon, through the suburbs and eventually city centre of Bristol, and then out, onto the M32, the M4, the M5, and back through the winding roads of Gloucestershire, over the Oxon border and home.

It’s strange – it’s a journey that seems in a way to have certain echoes of Advents past – in 2015 there was a poem about travelling home from Temple Meads, while the road back to Witney also followed the route we took heading back from doorknocking in Gloucester on Polling Day, 2019, passing the pub that served us several post-canvass pints. On the days that those roadsides inspired those particular poems, I was in the passenger seat myself, only relearning to drive last summer. I’ll tell you more about that another day, but today was probably the longest I’ve ever driven for, and so it feels sort of fitting that it was through the tyre-marks of previous poems, previous Advents, previous lives.

When I got home, I tried to write down as many of the things that I noticed as I could remember. Most of them speak for themselves, but for context, Echo Bridge is a superb album by Gavin Osborn, centred heavily on the village of Keynsham, which can be heard and bought here; DJ Derek was a Bristol selector/local legend who coincidentally featured in pub conversation just last night; the Hengrove bus was notable because it featured briefly in Stephen Merchant’s The Outlaws, which is on BBC iPlayer at the moment and is definitely worth a watch; and the pub in the next village is the White Hart in Minster Lovell, where I’m going for Work Christmas Dinner this Friday.

As I wrote down what I could recall from the journey, it became a bit like Kim’s Game, another Collins family pen-and-paper staple, where an assortment of whatever’s lying around in the kitchen on Boxing Day is placed on a tray, covered with a tea towel, and then unveiled and you’ve got 30 seconds to memorise them and a minute to write down as many as you can remember.

I Wikipedia’d it tonight to find out if it was something that existed outside of our family (last night I discovered that contrary to yesterday’s blog, Squeak Piggy Squeak is actually quite well-known) and learnt that it’s mainly played by Scouts, Guides, and the military as a sort-of observation exercise, and that it derives from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, in which the titular character trains to be a spy. I think. I’m not certain, I’ve not read it. ‘If’ is good though – I’ve got a CD of Des Lynam reading it over Fauré’s Pavane that I bought in a record shop in Exeter for 50p.

As I say, Kim’s game is a festive staple, so it seemed pretty Christmassy to invoke it here – although with an AKA, which I think is the first poem I’ve ever written with an AKA title, and which follows a conversation I had with some friends a few weekends ago about the greatest song to have an AKA title. I can’t actually remember what we agreed on but if you’ve got any suggestions please do comment below!

I’ve digressed again, but it’s appropriate to have a Christmassy title today as it’s the first weekend of Advent (although in religious terms not the first Sunday of Advent) and I am feeling festive. After getting home, I headed up to Mum’s to help decorate the Christmas tree (complete with Angel Bean Baby, Springy Bell, Pervy Santa and the Christmas Cowboy) and then came home to help Luci and the kids do ours (it eventually made it down from the loft). As I type, I’m finishing a mug of mulled wine and getting ready to catch-up on Strictly. Bugger that Sunday evening feeling, this feels good.

Christmas Cowboy and his friends watching Aston Villa-Leicester

Angel Bean Baby!

No accounting for taste.

Pervy Santa. The name is perhaps a bit unfair, as we think he’s nearly 100 years old. It was a different generation.

It’s going to be a busy week, so the standard, or at least the length, of the poetry might dip slightly over the coming days, but thanks for sticking with it. And even more importantly, thank you to those incredible people who have donated to the 2021 Poetry Advent Calendar fundraiser so far – your generosity means we’ve already smashed the fiver-a-day target, which is just magnificent. We’re raising money for the Ronald McDonald House Charities UK, who help families with a child in hospital and who have helped my own family immeasurably in recent months. If you’d like to donate, head to www.JustGiving.com/PoetryAdventCalendar21 – can we get to the tenner-a-day target of £250 by Christmas Eve?

Whatever your morning brings, I hope it will be a bright one. Goodnight for now.

Be creative. Twenty days to go…

Owen x

2021 Door Four: December in Wells

December In Wells

This could be Bruges,
But for the Barclays and the lack of Brendan Gleeson;
Bang a Christmas market here and some softly falling snow
And it could easily double for Middle Europe.
But this is Wells, in England,
With creamtea cafes and longjump records
Embedded in the cobbles.

In another era, there would be men in top hats
And long coats, women in bonnets and lanternlit choirs
Singing O Holy Night.

The cathedral bells still survive, and so do we,
And we’re here, in Wells, and going for a pint.

---

Had to finish and post this one in a bit of a rush, as we literally got in from one of Wells’ many drinking establishments at 10 minutes to midnight. I’d written a few thoughts down on my phone while in The Crown, with the magnificent, intimidating and utterly awe-inspiring sight of the Cathedral lurking behind me through the window. I had hoped to get back in time to edit it, and maybe even write something better, but it was not to be, so this is what we’re stuck with for Door Four. Look at that cathedral though.

Luci and I took an impromptu trip down to Wells today on the invitation of one of our best friends – one of the best of the best, no less. I spent a lot of the drive down trying to write a completely different poem in my head, and was one verse away from completion, but a combination of not being too happy with it, running out of time to make it better, and then coming face to face with the understated, slightly retro, but totally charming municipal Christmas lights in Wells, with the dusk rolling in through the market square, pushed a different poem into contention. This one. Which I’m not particularly happy with either.

I could happily live here: The quaint little shops, the many excellent pubs, the rivulets running down the High Street, the clear skies and again, that magnificent cathedral. It would give me more time to put what I love about the place into poetry, as I feel I’ve not done justice to the feeling I got coming back here today. I wrote a poem about it when we visited earlier this year, which I meant to publish online somewhere one day but still haven’t.

On the subject of unpublished poetry, there’s now a 75%-finished poem about the Collins family Christmas tradition of ‘Squeak Piggy Squeak’ which will never see the light of day, as under the rules of the Advent Calendar, I started it today so can’t return to it any other day. You’re not missing much, admittedly, but it would’ve been nice to introduce the mysterious gameplay of SPS to a wider audience. The mind shall have to boggle…

I’m feeling the effect of the Cherry and Chocolate Black Russians, slightly, so I’ll leave it there for tonight. Goodnight from England’s smallest city.*

No luck catching them swans then? Twenty-one days to go…

Owen x

*(not part of a larger urban agglomeration).

2019 Door Seventeen: Last Minute At The Garage

Last Minute At The Garage

But it’s hardly festive
– This little petrol station,
Shining-puddled, unleaded-
smelling, mixing with the Ginsters,
The freshly-squirted coffee.

The attendant wears a polo shirt,
Unpronounceable name badge
(Not that anyone tries.)
He has a matching cap for the days
When the sunshine pierces the greasy windows.

The wire-bundled papers’ lies
Shout into each other, piled kerbside.
The thinnest bit of tinsel drapes
From own-brand vodka to hidden fags.
A bauble in each corner. Enough.

The radio speaker spits
The same songs constantly:
Mariah, Shakey, Band Aid,
Driving Home For Christmas.
This is the place to come last minute.

The glossy magazines will be grabbed.
The air fresheners and seatbelt covers,
The driving gloves, picked with love,
To be wrapped and held like treasure.
The Jaffa Cake metres will be drawn
Like Excalibur.

Somebody will drink the second-cheapest wine,
Somebody will devour the biscuit selection,
Somebody will arrange the forecourt flowers
On a Christmas morning kitchen table,
Muffling the forgotten echo of
TEXACO-CO-CO-CO
As croissants and Bucks Fizz are served.
Somebody loves us, still.

---

A bit of an odd one today. I’ve spoken before on this blog of my love for the slightly-crap roadside institutions of Britain, and today celebrates that overlooked, but always sought-out, bastion of motoring Englishness, the petrol station.

It turns out there is some great literature written about places like this (I’m not necessarily referring to the above, by the way), notably Filling Station, by Elizabeth Bishop, a really beautiful example of the genre. It’s the poem today’s Door is based on, and though they don’t boast an awful lot in common except the theme and a few deliberately-similar lines, I’m grateful to the late Ms. Bishop for the inspiration.

I’m not the only bard to have felt the benefit of such a petrol-soaked muse. Earlier this year, me and Luci got two trains and a bus from Oxford to a multi-storey car park in Peckham to hear the poet Ella Frears recite a series of Bishop-inspired poems based around the roadside service stations between Cornwall and London. I’m very glad we went, even if I feel residually bitter that someone took the chance to hymn these soggy sanctuaries before I did.

Before I drive on, I must wish a happy birthday to the original broseph, my brother Joe. You might remember him from this. He’s older now, obviously. But I’m pleased to say we still get on – even if this year I’ve chosen to write about Ginsters pasties instead of him. Or the chipolata ballad he insisted I pen instead. Sorry bro.

Today’s poem is probably the most ‘poetic’ I’ve written so far this Advent. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or not.

Pump 4 please. Eight days to go.

Owen x

2019 Door Ten: The Calm Before

The Calm Before

Treat this dark, suspicious night
The same way you would treat the snow:
As a blank page, future ours to write.
The wind of change about to blow.

---

Just a short one tonight. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever written, but it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve written today. Alas, time is already against me, as I’m jumping straight from the blowy boulevards of Milton Keynes North to the Old Fire Station in Oxford, to perform at the mercurial Steve Larkin’s Hammer & Tongue.

I’ve done a lot of staring out the window lately, on the way to or from various marginal constituencies, but somehow – and quite uncharacteristically, given my history – it hasn’t inspired me that much. Until tonight, when night descended as soon as the engines started and I haven’t been able to see a thing.

The future really is unwritten. It’s time to pick up a pen, my friends.

“It’s not a call to arms; it’s a call to helping hands.” Fifteen days to go.

Owen x

2019 Door One: December In Minehead

December In Minehead

Around four,
The sun sinks behind the hill,
Morrisons’ monolith casts shadows over the heritage railway.
Butlins’ Big Top glows dim in the dusk,
Lightbulbs tingle along the Esplanade.

But the shops are still open,
And British Heart Foundation bleeds warmth through its window displays,
Illuminated signs splash across the Avenue.
One-by-one, doors are locked, switches are flicked,
Municipal Christmas decorations sparkle.

Evening falls, night descends,
Filaments fade yet seagulls speckle the nightsky,
Shimmering like stars.
Where the land meets the sea, the surf blends with the sand,
The country ends as the day does.
The waves are quiet. The Earth is as one.
All is dark. All is calm.

---

The hinges are creaking, and Door One of 2019’s Poetry Advent Calendar swings open. I’m currently in the eponymous Minehead, one of my favourite towns in all of England, nay England and Wales, as I am most winters. Butlins is playing host to the Madness House Of Fun Weekender, and so once again I’m spending four days in the coastal drizzle listening to the finest band in the universe on near-constant loop and drinking more than I’m breathing.

I don’t plan these poems in advance (that’s the point, after all) but to be honest I had expected that today I would be writing something to do with Madness, or at least something vaguely musical. But, sucker as I am for the quintessential Englishness of a slightly malnourished seaside town out of season, it ended up being more of a dusky paean to the place that has, over the last nine Novembers, become something of a second home to me.

I love the place – I love the bird poo-encrusted crazy golf courses, the grand-looking pubs, I love its sands blowing across the zebra crossing and the bric-a-brac in its charity shops. And I love being by the sea generally – that feeling as the land slides away to the water, the feeling of the topography levelling out as the country reaches its climaxes. Truth be told, there’s no better place to be as Advent begins.

That being said, the internet reception here is dreadful and the Butlins Wifi package only gives me a certain number of MB, so like the harbour wall, I’ll end here.

It’s good to be back. 24 days to go…

Owen x

2015: Door Sixteen – Temple Meads To Swindon

Temple Meads To Swindon

The snug terraces,
The rugby pitches,
All lying empty and cold
Holding two fingers to the wind.

The winding roads escpaing from
Under railway bridges,
The pylons and pole flossing the country with their wires.

Christmas is coming out there, too,
Though it doesn’t know it yet:
The spiky rows of bare-branched bushes
Seemingly unaware of the part
Their nakedness has to play in all this.
Likewise, the frozen hard ploughed fields,
Like scratches in a snooker table,
Suggest nothing more than winter’s approach,

And offer no hint of acknowledgement
That in nothing more than their existing,
They, too, will contribute to the season’s magic.

And superimposed across the top of it all,
My own undercoat paint-flecked reflection,
Like the first patches
Of snow on the hillside.

---

Written on the train back home from Bristol after a couple of days decorating (hence the face.) Will write more tomorrow when I have more time, but alas, work Christmas Dinner is a-calling.

Sometimes I think Philip Larkin has a lot to answer for. 8 days to go…

Owen