From Freshney Falls to Simwhite Bridge
hollow eyes watch from tired walls
beneath a charcoal carcass.
There’s a cobweb exhibition along the promenade
and a gallery of weathered broken frames
telling noir tales of the wharf
where every mill and warehouse echoes.
Peace breathes where trade once raged
when barges from Trent and Ouse came and went
as millers’ and wagoners’ cries spiced the air
where eel-stangers and bullhead anglers set their pegs.
Now, mallard and coot strut and streak;
bin liners drift and a beer can rolls
across an algae island.
Pigeons court under rusting bridges
and, amidst the reeds and weeds,
the vole surveys his dominion,
untroubled by green litter and human debris;
and bubbles break beneath this shoe, commode
and rusting wheel.
Image by Dale Mackie.
Watch Sean Atkinson’s wonderful film and listen to artist Dale Mackie and I discuss our collaboration and the part this poem played in that.
Read my piece on the collaboration, Layering: a reflection on form and reminiscence at https://larkholmer.com/layering/
West Haven first appeared in Crossing Lines: Images and words, the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name at Grimsby’s Abbey Walk Gallery in 2015. This event formed part of a longer Driftnet Poets project supported by the Arts Coucil Funding.