Book Text Examples
Publication: |
A19 |
Author: |
Geoff Tomlinson |
Sample Text: |
To Beauty Again Beauty’s gone out of fashion, like pyjamas, but it must still be there behind the retail-park or football-ground. It’s just that now, with trips to the Bahamas, jogging and keeping skinny, folks have found different ideas to wear. To be honest, I still fall for primroses and most of spring, but cars piled in the breakers have as great a charm as any bright new plant that decomposes. Scrap-yards and grave-yards have the same sad calm, like empty public-bars. But what’s the point? The objection still applies now, as it did for Keats. We find ourselves most passionately aware falling in love with anything that dies. The best defence is either not to care or praise these ugly streets. |
Back to Publications page Publication: |
Aerial Photography |
Author: |
Katharine Banner |
Sample Text: |
Cogida Up here on Murder Hill the earth is losing control of its store of August heat which lifts and breaks towards the persistent tug of a rising harvest moon. You scoff at twelve-hour shifts: tonight, with a bullfighter's concentration, you guide sharp fingers across the field below and peel up laid corn; indifferent to what's on either side; aware of nothing but barley cowled to your reel. If an auger stalls or a drive belt slips you'll pasuse, back up to free some trash. draw one hand up over your brow and moisten your lips - that's all. You heard about the matador who stole a glance at a woman in the crowd. None of it's true. I tell you. Look up now. |
Publication: |
Big Mag |
Author: |
Norman Cowell |
Sample Text: |
When I was seven I witnessed my aunt fight. Coming home from school I stopped to watch some stevedores playing pitch an' toss. In my eagerness to see what was happening, I accidentally touched a man's arm as he was about to pitch his penny against the wall. His penny fell short. Annoyed, he swore and cuffed me to the ground. I went crying home with a bleeding nose. My aunt was at my home. She said nothing as I told my tale to my mother. But no sooner had my mother washed my face, than my aunt had me by the hand frog marching me back to the pitch an' toss school. The man who had hit me must have seen Big Mag coming, because he tried to melt into the crowd. The crowd, no longer interested in the pitch an' toss, parted to allow my aunt passage to her victim. A small man, he was no match for Big Mag. She beat him to the floor and began kicking him. A few of the men called out that he'd had enough, but my aunt in her wild rage paid them no heed. One of the stevedores, a large man nicknamed Twin because of his size, took hold of my aunt by the collar in an effort to stop her kicking the man senseless. As he pulled her back, she twisted under his arm, trapping his fingers between her collar and neck. The force and speed of her movement broke two of Twin's fingers, Wild rumour later had it that the sound of Twin's fingers cracking had been clearly heard two streets away. |
Publication: |
Daylight Saving |
Author: |
Janice Sinson |
Sample Text: |
RAID A sudden stilling chills the lapse before the fight. Sun beats beads of heat on the three in one horrific ball, dead against the guttered wall. No movement from the day-late runt, coffined by still siblings. Yesterday’s cracked eggshells grief the nest. Gulls mass and perch alert on chimney cowls, echoing a raucous chorus from roof to roof. Wailing against an unkindness of ravens. |
Publication: |
Dear Bob |
Author: |
Bert Ward (May Gill) |
Sample Text: |
from Letter of Thursday 9 July 1931 It's Middlesbrough's centenary week so there are lots of celebrations. There are lots of flags on the market stalls and Middlesbrough's librarian has been talking about the history of the town. He said that in the 7th. century there was a monk's cell in Middlesbrough. I could show him one now. Stan Cole's shed. In 1801 there were only 25 people here so the population has grown very fast. There were ten thousand people at a meeting in Albert park the other night to celebrate the centenary. According to the paper they sang 'Oh God Our Help in Ages Past'. The school children have had a sports day in Stewart Park and a pageant in Ayresome Park. A lot of them went on to the pitch. The boys wore dark suits and the girls white dresses and they formed the word ERIMUS, the town's motto. Jimmy asked me what it meant but I had no idea. So I asked your dad. He has no idea either. He only knows how to run the country. There's a man in North Ormesby applied for a job in one of the iron works and they told him he's too old to work. He's 42. So he wrote to Stanley Baldwin and said if there's a war would he be too old to fight. Anyway, Mr. Baldwin wrote back and sent him his sympathy. He said that we are importing iron and steel that we could make ourselves and when he gets in he will change that. That's all this time. Your dad's been out all day looking for a job. I hoped he would take me to the Palladium this week, the first half, to see 'The Flirting Widow'. But he said he used to know her husband. He boozed in the Devonport. |
Publication: |
Dear Bob 2 |
Author: |
Bert Ward (May Gill) |
Sample Text: |
Letter number 5 Wednesday 27 January 1932 Dear Bob, There’s dreadful news from here and with you being in the Navy it seems personal. A submarine M2 has sunk off Portland and they can’t find her. There are 56 officers and men on board. We are all keeping our fingers crossed and praying that they will be rescued. Have you heard about it? And talk about coincidence, there’s a photo in the Gazette of Captain John Bell of Redcar who rammed and sank the first German submarine in the War. He’s just died. You will want to know what is happening at home. Well, the new swimming baths are nearly complete and will soon be ready for opening. Sadie and I were talking about it, and Sadie said that Jack Hatfield had swam two lengths in the new baths. Jimmy, who had his nose in the Magnet but with his ears flapping in all directions piped up. “Mam. How could Jack Hatfield swim two lengths if there was no water in the baths?” I said to Sadie, “Take no notice. It runs in the family.” and she said, “Which side, yours or your ould fella’s?” I gave her one of my cutting looks. Talking about our Jimmy, we’ve got a new Catholic church on Linthorpe Rd. It’s called the Sacred Heart and St Philomena. Well, I don’t know whether it was that that started it off but Jimmy came in and said he wished he was a Catholic. So I said why, and he said because you can go and confess your sins and God lets you off. Well, our Jimmy wouldn’t know what a sin was if one jumped up and bit him so I said you can confess to me if you done something wrong. Or your dad. Well he was definitely against confessing to his dad and he didn’t think confessing to me left him much room for mischief. So I said well what have you done wrong and he said nothing. So I said if you’ve done nothing wrong there’s nothing to confess to God about is there. That put him on the ropes. And that reminded me of the time when he came in with his trouser pockets bulging. “What’s in your pockets?” sez me. “Nothing.” So I looked in his pockets and got two apples out. “What’s these?” I said and he looked at them as if he had never seen them before. “Where did you get them?” says I. Sometimes our Jimmy’s face reminds me of a Christmas card we got once. It was all snow and there was a five barred gate and a robin on it looking as if it was wondering what came next. “Where did you get them?” “I don’t know.” he says. Then the light came on inside his head that lights his face up and you know inspiration has arrived. “They fell off a tree.” he says. “Where is this tree?” I asked. “Limes Road.” he says. “And who was up the tree?” “Nobody” he says, all hurt like. “If you were confessing to God He would know who was up that tree”. That got him. “Peter Cassidy.” he said. I might have guessed. Like father like son. His dad John was a little rascal. But he’s settled down now and works on the docks. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was Peter that put the idea into Jimmy’s head about being a Catholic and confessing and having a clear week ahead. But I didn’t ask Jimmy. Children have to have some secrets if they are going to survive in the adult world that waits for them. The Ford American motor car company is opening a new factory at Dagenham in London that will make 200,000 cars every year. I can’t imagine that number of motor cars. I asked your dad if this would mean work for the steel works here but he thinks we make the wrong kind of steel. But you never know. Your dad doesn’t know everything. I’ll have to ask Stan Cole. He does. I don’t know why they are going to make cars here when there is so much unemployment in America. A man who was in the Labour Government has just come back from America and he says there’s no dole or public assistance there at all. And we complain about the Means Test. Not that I am in favour of the Means Test, I’m not, and there’s some very bitter letters in the Gazette from people giving their experiences with the Public Assistance Committee. It’s very humiliating. But to have nothing at all doesn’t bear thinking about. There’s been a mutiny here in Dartmoor prison with convicts and warders fighting each other. Part of the prison has been set on fire. Some of the convicts helped the warders so you wonder what the trouble is all about. I was talking to Mrs Levinson, you know the lady I clean for, about it, or she was talking to me about it while we were having a cup of tea. She says the world is a very troubled place now with the trouble in Spain, the Nazis and Communists in Germany and now the Japanese and Chinese are at it. She blames the Communists and Socialists for stirring up trouble though what that’s got to do with China and Dartmoor I don’t know. Between Mrs Levinson and Stan I will get an explanation. Actually two explanations. And then I’ll wish I hadn’t asked. The corporation is going to build a lot of houses on the Whinney Banks and Brambles Farm so there will be a lot of work for builders. I said to your dad that this could be the end of unemployment like the sunblind theory. I told you about it in one of my letters. There’s been another pit disaster, this time in Wales. There was an explosion. Sadie was telling me that she got Mr Muir going again. She’s a real trouble maker. It was the Cleveland Scots annual Burns dinner and she was pulling his leg that she saw him in the Gazette in his kilt. He never learns. We had him the same way last year and he fell for it again. Well that’s all this time. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Your everloving Mam PS Sheffield Wednesday 1 Boro 1 |
Publication: |
Discoverers |
Author: |
No Author |
Sample Text: |
from Banjo Riley’s Pullover by Geoff Tomlinson As everybody knows, grief wears holes in your pullover. Banjo Riley’s missus hadn’t been dead more than five or six weeks when holes began to appear in his fair-isle cardigan, and also in his memory. Some days he couldn’t remember whether he’d just had a cigarette or not. Nobody cared about that, but when he missed turning up for the musical evenings at Old Ma Blackett’s bar people began to realise Banjo was in difficulties. People had been known to travel six or seven miles on the train to hear the Hawksworth harmonisers, and walk the six miles back, way after midnight. Eventually Ma Blackett herself felt obliged to have a word with him. “Who’s doin’ your washin’ these days, Banjo?” she asked obliquely. “Washin’?” says Banjo, as though raking through his memory for an old and complicated concept. “Yea, you know, washin’. Who’s washing your shirts since Liza died?” “Well, nobody in particular,” says Banjo “I washes some of ‘em misself. Our Ada sometimes washes one or two. Mrs Hardacre has offered, but I don’t need help that bad.” “And who gets you up in the morning then?” “Why, Nobbie, o’ course, like everybody else.” “I heard rumours you’ve been late for work three mornings this week.” “Who told you that?” “Never mind who told me. It’s not like you, Arthur, to be late for work.” Banjo pushed down a crumpled grey woollen sock and scratched his ankle. “I must be getting old, Ma. Can’t make the effort like I could as a young un.” “Old! You’re only just turned forty,” said Ma Blackett with the indignation of a woman of fifty-four whose youth has been called in question. “It’s a pity you didn’t have children, Banjo,” she continued, her tone noticeably softening. With six children of her own, Ma Blackett was in a strong position to lecture on the value of family benefits. “What’re you getting at exactly?” asked Banjo, irritably, beginning to sense some ulterior motive in all this concern. “You’ve missed two Saturdays out of four,” said Mrs. B, wiping the same pint glass that she’d been drying when she opened the conversation, “I hope you’re not going to miss tonight.” “If I don’t come, you don’t have to pay me,” said Banjo, attempting to sound belligerent, but only succeeding in convincing Ma that all was not well with his heart or head. |
Publication: |
Flying Lessons |
Author: |
Shirley Hetherington |
Sample Text: |
Roller Skates At the back of a cupboard worn out like the princesses’ dancing shoes. I flick cracked wheels and remember the first time clutching at doors and fences, I wanted to be Sonia Henjie. Soon, balanced, I belonged with the tribe. Twilight deepened over Clepstone Avenue and Birchgate Road, bungalow curtains drawn tight, wirelesses tuned in. Tall as gods we were flying. The shoal turned from dark to silver in the moonlight. We moved together, a cool machine, ballbearings in harmony, then spun out into the unknown spiralling Van Gogh stars. |
Publication: |
Give it a try |
Author: |
Gary Ming |
Sample Text: |
But There Is No Sleep (when men must weep) Now come the shadows with shapes that shift While darkness unfurls its unwelcome cloak Disguised curses, a rictus of a joke Stealing sanity that most precious gift And this night-time bastard spell will not lift Fingers of insomnia prod and poke And the tight bands of guilt begin to choke. Fuck! how I hate Morpheus' thrift. But as my spine slowly slips down the cell door This mesmer is broken and hopes arise For sunlight flechettes make rents through his form And daylight floods pools on this cold cell floor. Once more I view the dawn through blood-shot eyes And day brings release from this night-time scorn. |
Publication: |
Gold |
Author: |
Jo Heather |
Sample Text: |
Steadying The pillows have thinned on this bed now mine, a bed as bitter as a desert night stretched wide enough for grieving. So instead, because they are needed, from the warm cupboard’s topmost shelf, a shelf you could reach without even trying, I will clamber up and take for myself these firm pillows used only once before when, that day on the small white bed narrowed for dying, they held your head high, helped you keep your face turned for a while towards the light and afterward, tenderly placed, steadied you there till morning. |
Publication: |
High Level Apprentice |
Author: |
Keith Porritt |
Sample Text: |
His Hands Big hands, strong fingers, salt soaked, Sore from hauling pots and lines. Wrists rubbed raw by oilskins chafing. Muscular arms, shoulders and back From pulling oars, heaving nets. Strong legs set wide apart to counter The roll and pitch of boat beneath, Seaboot-clad feet. Hands capable of sculling with a single oar Or feathering it so lightly That salmon would almost leap into his net. Strong hands with a vice-like grip. Yet gentle, so gentle, to bear a child aloft, To carry him shorewards, through treacherous surging tides, Across sea-washed scaurs and beaches In the sheltered bay, between high cliffs That lie along this rock-strewn coast. Amidst all the vagaries of the weather, Through sun-kissed days and black stormy nights. To carry his son safely home. His hands bear testimony to his past, Big hands, strong hands, scarred hands From salt water boils, fillet knife slashes, Rope burns when he paid out a line too quickly, When he was young. When he could splice a rope, tie a knot, weave a net, bait a line With his strong, nimble, dextrous, fine-tuned hands, Capable of any task they were set. These skills he learned from his father He would pass on to his sons. |
Publication: |
Rain in a Dry Land |
Author: |
Gareth Spark |
Sample Text: |
ON THE CLIFF Stars dropped with arms of fire and cradled him As he thought of her, stood cliff top, looking as She had then, before her last amen Subsided to the world’s dim grace, and her praise Died, like these stars, come dawn. How she had promised and how he had Sworn upon his name; but crabbed In the chase of his blood there was A djinn, that would not allow him even That darkness of peace called love, Which instead sped out for sand, The red warmth of distance, where there is No kiss but that of black flies, And no gaze except the empty skies. |
Publication: |
Rivertales 2 |
Author: |
Garry Newmarch |
Sample Text: |
from Too Much Welly Altogether, Sir Wellies. I swear that this Surveyor had an absolute fetish about rubber wellies. Now I know that we all have our little foibles and that he might not be unique in being turned on by them in a certain place at an appropriate time, but he was certainly unique in the fact that he wore them twelve hours a day, and twelve months a year, both in and out of the office. In fact the only time he could have conceivably taken them off was to change into his pyjamas at night. And then immediately put them back on again. But he was the Surveyor for ICI Wilton - Philips Teesport and also 'Wellies' was renowned for having a Big Thing About derv..... - Now, I digress again briefly to explain a little about derv, and thus the background to this particular anecdote. Derv is a derivative of petrol (hence 'derv') and is used by heavy vehicles on land and heavy craft at sea. Because it is used for heavy commercial use to facilitate trade, Excise Duty is a fraction of what is charged on ordinary petrol at the garage forecourt. Some naughty people, however, convert their cars/vans to operate using derv. And attempt to obtain it, usually illicitly, to save money. And at the Philips Oil terminal, teesport, there are derv pumps, strictly for the use of oil tankers. Got all that? Excellent. |
Publication: |
Russian Conversations |
Author: |
Tara Bergin |
Sample Text: |
from Russian Conversation by Tara Bergin ‘You are here to fall in love. I was a girl once you know.’ The old woman smiles with her mouth but her eyes are harder to read. I wonder if she simply considers me a foolish tourist. And I do feel mindless without my tongue. I am no-one, no where. I have no jokes to tell or stories, or songs to sing. I am dumb and sulky. Where are all those phrases and paragraphs that I have been re-learning in my room? I didn’t realise how much I had lost of this language, until now. I wonder will it return? The old woman has turned to talk to her cousin and I pick up my glass and hold it, looking about. On the dark, polished dining table are many small, uneaten pastries filled with fish and white cheeses, and many glasses made of Bohemian crystal out of which have been drunk single mouthfuls of locally made vodka. The apartment is big but the old grand furniture makes it cramped. Afternoon sunlight shines through a white lace curtain and makes shadows on the window-sill. I try to rehearse some phrases in my mind but I am thinking now of this Kostya, the poet I have never met. Is he here? I wonder could I fall in love with him? I put the glass down. How ridiculous to think like that, especially when I’m not here for falling in love. But it would be interesting to read what he writes. Everybody here is starting to move around, they are getting ready to go to a concert, it’s The Barber of Seville. It’s being shown in the floodlit grounds of the old castle and the new bride who is a cellist is very excited about this production. I can’t bear to go to the concert, so I decide to go back to the lodging house where I’m living. I don’t mind that I’m leaving early, I’m better off that way. I say goodbye to the old woman but she holds my arm and calls to a young man to come and meet me – Kostya of course. He is quiet but interested in the fact that I’m learning Russian. ‘Are you interested in translating something?’ he says. ‘I could try.’ |
Publication: |
Seven by Five |
Author: |
Natalie Boxall, Hilary Cooper, Mike Edwards, Liz G |
Sample Text: |
from Perfectly Nice Day by Liz Geraghty It was a perfectly nice day. Seven of the parents had come along, which was more than Christine had really expected. A full count of children. Christine had five inhalers and an Epipen, all neatly labelled (Jasvinder, Kylie, Josh B, Josh R, Dervish and Zak), all neatly stashed in one compartment of Miss's Magic Bag, as Ken - Boss Ken - had cringingly called it while he waved them onto the bus. 'We counted them out,' he chanted - he always did - 'and we counted them back. Have a good day, now.' Someone - she thought it was Zak's Mum - had got them singing 'The Wheels on the Bus' before they were even out of Dalston. The kids were a bit old for that really, but it was the thought that counted. The twins, Rashid and Mina, seemed more closely bound to their mother than the woman's own arms were. Her dark blue bhurka wrapped them in a safe place from which the rest of the world was not quite real. Neither of them had spoken in class yet, but it was Early Days. They'd only joined at Easter. They didn't seem unhappy. Christine had a lot of experience. She thought they'd do well after the summer. Which was only two full weeks away now. Then painting the flat, and France, and Tony. Christine loved her job, but she loved the summers too: the glorious long change; the same safe rhythms of her own childhood. 'The Wheels on the bus go round and round Round and Round Round and Round. The song was becoming more strident. And even less appropriate: the bus wasn't moving at all. London traffic was always bad, but it shouldn't be this bad! They were due at the Zoo at eleven o'clock. They were due to leave the zoo again at one thirty. She'd refined the timings over the last four years - Reception always loved the zoo - and she knew what she was doing, but today's traffic just wasn't normal at all. She hoped there hadn't been an accident. |
Publication: |
Shutdown Fortnight |
Author: |
John Harrison |
Sample Text: |
John from Work I happen to be in the neighbourhood, parked in front of your flat at four in the morning though you obviously don’t want to see me often – see me full stop. I know where you live. This car of mine needs two new tyres. You’ve never even kissed me. I’ve smoked a lot of cigarettes. You’ve got problems too. Some eejit wants to read you a poem and talk about his stupid life and Amber Street, a Saltburn full of predatory people. Cripes, it’s not as bad as all that. Sometimes we act nice to fool you. Heart of darkness? |
Publication: |
Smoke |
Author: |
Andy Croft |
Sample Text: |
The date is 1851, The Middlesbrough Farm has gone. Instead, we’ve built beside the Tees A town designed by Joseph Pease. Two decades since, we were unknown, But now our little town has grown Exporting tons of Durham coal, To more than seven thousand souls. We’ve dredged the river, made it straight, We’ve bridged it, used it to create A little town with sweat and toil Where once the farmers tilled the soil. There’s butchers, bakers, brewers, Inns with beds for homesick sailors, There’s brickies, dockers, doctors, builders, There’s joiners, painters, millers, drapers, A market place and weekly papers, There’s railwaymen and navvies, clerks, A new town hall, and seventy pubs, An Exchange hall and several clubs Where local businessmen can meet, A modern school in Stockton Street, A pottery, a railway yard - Though life is busy, life is hard, This Middlesbrough is here to stay, We’ll face the future, come what may, We’re going up, not going down, A Wild West, frontier, gold-rush town ! We’re famous - North, South, East and West - Our Middlesbrough is just the best ! |
Publication: |
Swim |
Author: |
Pat Borthwick |
Sample Text: |
Late Road Home Nothing can erase that pale owl moored on the metal, the way he turned his bonneted head to challenge my headlights. beak, talons, pole star bright. A blood-red moon in his full crop. Then, like the sure hauling of sails for a long outward passage, he hauled his quiet featheriness up and into the encircling night. Wingbeats as slow, as silent, as this road home, away from you. |
Publication: |
The Improvements |
Author: |
Sheila Nichols |
Sample Text: |
The Cyclists Leaves hap the side of the road a fiery crumpled quilt. We freewheel into it scattering scraps of yellow, bronze, red. Feet on handlebars, arms stretched wide to the late summer sun, we scream our schoolgirl ballads ‘Santa Lucia-a-a-a’, Tor-r-n’ a Sorriento’. Peewits answer across stony banks; the river glints icy, reflecting the snow-capped Bens. This is the last time we will hurl our song careless into the ether; but we don’t know this now. |
Publication: |
The Singing Ducks of Amiens |
Author: |
Ian Horn |
Sample Text: |
Returning from Amiens There is a lost balloon inside Charles de Gaulle Airport. At the check-in desk there’s not a Montgolfier Brother or a Phileas Fogg in sight. The Mickey Mouse balloon is hovering just below the ceiling in the departure lounge. It must have strayed from the grasp of a small child in a Paris suburb. There are fewer travellers than normal, Disneyland pilgrims are in retreat. Cemetery keepers are working in New York and the Somme. Theses days it’s safer to stay at home and read The Bible or the Koran. To relieve airport boredom I reach for my book Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. Underneath, there is a copy of the newspaper Le Monde. I catch the headline, ‘George Harrison est Mort.’ We climb to the heavens. Ian Horn |
Publication: |
The Singular Plant |
Author: |
Syndou Diarrassouba |
Sample Text: |
Hope and Hopelessness Another moment with another Spring – There was nothing left in me. When I looked up I couldn’t see the light. When you lose your mind all hope is gone. But I heard a small voice saying to me – Don’t lose your peaceful dream – That voice dressed me well for my vision Of flying, Of every bird in the sky Opening its throat and singing a song of hope Because hope is the window of the soul And good people are the curtain Reflected in the corner of my eyes. Week to week, my heart follows the clock round, Standing, humbled, in the Post Office queue, Many faces oscillating in my eyes, Deflating all breathing spirit in my veins. I remain standing in the fragments of my soul, Mechanical, valued at nothing. But that bitter moment passes, Like shadows in moonlight. Nothing changes unless we learn; But still there remain those Who can never cross the border Between hopelessness and hope. |
Publication: |
The Wrong California |
Author: |
Andy Willoughby |
Sample Text: |
The Wrong California We come from the wrong California, No-one but the ironmasters made their fortune here. The masses that huddles here for work Did not come for liberty but survival, Though they dragged tons of stone And Sydney Harbour Bridge from ancient hills Amongst other wonders unacknowledged - Just read the Dorman Long signs on the girders Of the London Underground! They formed their unions but found no myth of Zorro And "fuck off joe shite" sprayed on a Grangetown wall Does not speak of freedom with a Z but says it all; We come from the wrong California, Dream of cheap holidays, casual work and sweet football. |
Publication: |
Walayat Deko |
Author: |
Khadim Hussain |
Sample Text: |
Bury Me Bury me not in a cemetery, Cover not my grave With gravel and cement. Sacrifice no flowers Upon my grave, Leave nature’s bounty to nature. Bury me near a river glade Where the water buffaloes graze And roam over me. When the river is full And floods the glade I’ll be thankful For bathing me. Please bury me, bury me In the river glade Where as a child I once played. |
Publication: |
WILD |
Author: |
Mike Pratt |
Sample Text: |
To small children even a sandbank can be a mountain. And so it has been for generations of kids in Marske-by-Sea, who have roamed the dunes and between town and beach. One part of this sliver of wildness stands out more than the rest because, from June into July, it turns blue. Blue that is with viper's bugloss, my favourite of all flowers. This riotous red and deep blue inflorescence grows in thick patches all over this area. Everyone locally knows Blue Mountain, even if they don’t know the reason why it got its name, though at the right time of year it is obvious. Most probably dismiss these wild flowers as garden escapees, mere lupins. Even from a distance the great sandbank is a sheen of violet blue. They grow in thick, well-established panicles, bunches of blousy flower spikes that rise above the grass sward. They are even more prolific today than I remember them, when the last of them seemed about to be blown away with the sand. But they and the plants around them have a sturdy grip on their habitat; they are resilient. They need to be in this harsh environ, sand and salt-licked, nearly waterless and competing hard with long-rooted marram grass. Against all this, they stand majestic, waving at the sea behind them. Closer examination reveals how they live up to their name. They are snake-like with speckled stems and red, tongue-like stamens, protruding from blue reptilian florets. Like poisonous snakes, their bright markings seem to be giving out a warning and, though not stingers, they are covered in rash-inducing hairs. |
Publication: |
Words on a Map |
Author: |
Geoff Strange |
Sample Text: |
Mill A word on a map lured me To a hedge gap on a C road, To a long-deserted broken track Three parts swallowed by a wood. To this place, this place on a map Where a beck bites back From a brown glass glide At the winstone's edge, Then spills its weight and flash In a deep down-fling At a drumming pool. This place, where trees and ferns and moss Collude in damp secrecy To drown the snagged reef walls Of a derelict mill. A mark on a map drew me; No mill there now but still Its clean grain feeds me. |