A SYNAPSE SPARKS UNBIDDEN

This poem appeared in a rush. An unheralded memory making itself known for the first time in forty plus years. The hard part was turning all those words and images into something that worked on the paper.

TOP SECRET

a synapse sparks unbidden

sets the memory unrolling

and I am back in the 70s

an apprentice working with a fitter

old enough to be my father

he’s telling me about his national service

“I spent two years on an airbase in Yorkshire

guarding Vulcan bombers

and me a time served tradesmen

fully indentured

but the RAF needed security

for the new super weapon

it wasn’t a bad billet

and the sergeant told me that

no one enters that hanger

not even your grey haired old mother God bless her

because it’s top bloody secret that’s why

I’ll have your bloody balls on toast

if you bloody defy me

and it wasn’t a bad billet

save for that time in February

when I should have been at the dance with my girl

pulled the short one that night I can tell you

this one pip rocks up all received pronunciation

straight out of Sandhurst demanded I move aside

that I let him into the hanger and that is an order

looked down his nose at me

his face getting redder and redder

and then it was get out of my way

by God I’ll have you on a charge

so I moved aside and when his back was turned

I hit him with the butt of my revolver

did I mention we were armed

anyway the officer went down like a sack of spuds

and there was hell to pay

I barely escaped a glass house holiday

never knew what became of that officer

never saw a Vulcan either only on the telly

years and years later”

he threw his dog end away

it had stopped raining

so we left the shelter of the pipe bridge

and went back to whatever we were doing before the rain

The Vulcan bomber was in use by the RAF from the 1950s until the 1990s.  It looked the business, a classic delta shape. The story is as near as I can recollect.

Barsuk and Jealous Butcher Records are rereleasing the first four album by Laura Gibson. I suspect there is new music to come. Here's a track from La Grande.

Until next time.

WAYLAND THE SMITH

Sometimes poems can be sparked by legends, not often, it must be said, but sometimes. Wayland the Smith is an old tale courtesy of the Vikings. Wayland was a master smith who was enslaved by a king. He revenged himself by killing the king's sons and making a drinking cup from the skull of one of the dead. He escapes on wings he has fashioned for the task.

WAYLAND THE SMITH

Hamstrung but not ham-fisted,

you knew the names of colours of flames

and what each would lend to the metal,

fashioning beauty from royal cruelty.

Shuffling, each step a slap in your face,

a physical jeer that rakes the pain of your past anew.

In work you are lost, motionless,

silver solder runs as molten as your hate.

The princes in thrall to your whispers,

their greed filled eyes their undoing.

Where are my sons he asked,

then drank deep from the cup

chased in silver, chased in gold,

a bone white vessel built to hold

revenge for royal cruelty.

You had a special fate reserved for the princess.

Let me ask you;

When she lay despoiled and dead at you shambling feet,

as you fitted your cold metal wings to fly from royal cruelty

and your own stale revenge,

did all the blood assuage the pain

or ring hollow as a tinkers trinket?

Gruesome isn't it. What struck me was after taking such horrible revenge did Wayland feel remorse? Did he think, yes all this death was necessary? I would hope not. The poem was written a long time ago and I have never read it in public.

As we are talking Viking I feel we should have a song by Bob Pegg. Here's The Werewolf of Old Chapel Town.

Until next time.