Friday 26 February 2010

Souvenir


there are a lot of souvenirs in my head
raining
the water in lines
falling
the gutters
the line going
I remember everything
an older brother
he was running

the river
boots
running through

it was raining and I remember
the planes passing over
making a boom boom boom
I’d sit on the window sill
curtains drawn in case there was a bomb
watched the children through the curtains
on rainy days

head in a fog
frustrating, confusing, annoying

it was raining and I remember the ground
wet and muddy, I had to wear Wellingtons
splash splash splash
through the
raining and I remember
the old ladies couldn’t go out
so grandma and I went to the pub
to get them guinness

your head in a fog
horrible
because you have it in your mind
but what I remember is right

remember playing by the
river and my shoes falling off and being washed
away
(I didn’t get into trouble but the other kids did)
used to love lying in bed
listening to the rain pattering the window

it was raining and I remember I was
a little devil
when I was young, when it was raining
raining in Alexandria
lightening
and then, for a month no rain
then again, rain really bad
looking out through a window
and swimming far
the fruit of the beach
catch it and eat with a spoon
faraway, the fruit
when it was raining it was raining hard
there was lovely fruit
I was mad, I was a devil swimming
taking the fruit from the rock
the fruit from the sea, rezza

raining women’s voices

branches of trees and old tyres
being washed down
even the baby’s dummy
gutters on roofs overflowing
leaves and pieces of soil run down the walls
cats and dogs
want to get inside

what does it feel like to forget?
it can be confusing, frightening
especially if you’re in the rain
like
getting off a bus
when you don’t know where you are

it was raining and I remember
Gene Kelly singing in the rain
in a musical, a great musical
Gene Kelly dancing under an umbrella as he sang
Morecambe and Wise singing
the same
funny, I remember singing at school with the other children
‘rain, rain, go away, come again another day’
raining and sunshining
I remember seeing a rainbow
remember it poured most of this summer
remember splashing the puddles when I was
a child
getting very wet
having to change and
dry in front of the fire.



Fred, Patricia, Yolanda
11 September 2009

Thursday 25 February 2010

Stepping Hill Hospital at Night (after Vosnesensky)

coughing at night

other breathing at night

people tend

droning to sleep

quietly

nurses’

footsteps

low light faces

the television

an adventure

of dark blue glass

constant

quiet breath engine

in their beds

three or four

calmed

safe



people

moving that’s the thing

I want to hear

people

X-ray photos of the soul

lonely

speak to me with dark tongues

lone

night

yawning




Ralph Starmer and Keith Philips

Stepping Hill 

2009

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Conch


many a time tea
on blackpool beach
day trips with me dad all the time
when he had time
blowing her nose
an excuse me lost at sea

in winter gardens - indoor gardens
that’s yours my love that music
fox trot waltz
a winter garden
fresh warm
stay the day

conch
it’s just the blood in your head
you can hear it rush
to shut

it’s rough
cough it up
an excuse me
scared the life out of me change the scene
sea rough
a garden a-flower
a tower
a walk many a time
asleep
me

shells


May Cocker, Rosamund Blackham and Mary Arrandale
Stepping Hill Hospital
2009

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Coming into

Coming into hospital for the fifth time
coming into hospital for the fifth
hate to think of so many times
it’s a desperate thought
I don’t want to think it
get on and forget sadness
get on with it and remember only the
forget
who you’ve been with
where you’ve been you’re not yourself
I’m so glad that they come
I’m so glad that they come
I can’t say how often but they do
it’s action for yourself
to see someone
to see some with the same
perhaps the same difficulties
you are not alone
there are many people like you for better or worse
there are many people who like you
good people there are many
friends of myself friends of I
saw
my place
sat in my chair
saw my place sat in my chair
I can see so much from here
I wish
good
I can see I can hear.


Mary Arrandale
Stepping Hill Hospital

Monday 22 February 2010

a locker



a locker is a sort of miniature you
haven’t much room on-ship
roll your mattress rope around
hammocks slung sausage-like

these curtain rails carrying

a coiled rope and a heaving line
panic at the dock everyone swearing
doesn’t bother me a cramped situation
eight fathoms for your morning wash

around the beds in the ward

they're a rough bloody outfit
on the frontline
some of the roughest buggers ever
I’ll take you all

remind me of

a good rough house in the pub
was a favourite occupation
thorough gentlemen
below decks

hammock rails

remind: dear me you don’t half meet characters
limbs and bits of heavy engineering
the place exploding
you hit the floor

the clews as they call em

undo them strings beg a kiss
the nurses
stealing sailors’
hatbands for ribbons


Allan Whittaker
Cherry Tree
2007

Sunday 21 February 2010

homemade scones


my daughter’s getting me somewhere
to live
it wasn’t easy
don’t fight allow it in
they’re looking after me all the time
is

a helpless helper
I see them everyday
feel I’m being looked after
my daughter will be down
one of the most important things
is

Angela Jenkins, Margaret Brown, Mary Murray
Cherry Tree
2009

Saturday 20 February 2010

Wheelchair


walking
an outlook
an outlet
your body don’t dilly dally
does what you tell

marbles on the way to school
for a long way flick it through
play for each others’ cowboys and indians
late at night
in the fields around farms
make dens of
long-seeming summers
in the 1940s

the first
thing is
to keep
little things adding
to a bigger step

on the fringe of farmed fields
bounded by the Mersey
we’d walk over the iron bridge
time working horses
the river a-flooded with ducks and geese
it’s all we had
kids walking the road home
was better frittered

what’s so good about sitting down?
if you’re going
for a walk
get your shoes and
go

Group
Cherry Tree 2009

Thursday 18 February 2010

wireless


a couple of operations
the prostrate region (nothing to look forward to)

nothing doing
nothing a lot of pain
look forward to talking to your wife

don’t watch the telly
don’t listen to the wireless
nothing I spose
dropping off to sleep
the fall of a sparrow
you do nothing you’re a nothing

absolute

your best plan is to go
(there he goes, off to the toilet
had a fall)

your outlook is nil
go to sleep don’t blame ya

married 65 years
keep your hand in pleasure

hold
real things
valuable qualities

but what can she do
she can’t look after me

is there anything? nothing?

annoys me this number of ill people
their chances are not good and mine are the same

and one of them shall not fall on the ground without

my wife catches my eye


Anonymous
Cherry Tree
2007

wireless


a couple of operations
the prostrate region (nothing to look forward to)

nothing doing
nothing a lot of pain
look forward to talking to your wife

don’t watch the telly
don’t listen to the wireless
nothing I spose
dropping off to sleep
the fall of a sparrow
you do nothing you’re a nothing

absolute

your best plan is to go
(there he goes, off to the toilet
had a fall)

your outlook is nil
go to sleep don’t blame ya

married 65 years
keep your hand in pleasure

hold
real things
valuable qualities

but what can she do
she can’t look after me

is there anything? nothing?

annoys me this number of ill people
their chances are not good and mine are the same

and one of them shall not fall on the ground without

my wife catches my eye


Anonymous
Cherry Tree
2007

Wednesday 17 February 2010

GEORGE III


PUT THE CLOCKS BACK

it’s a timewarp here shortens the day wakeup wakeup alters everything breakfast-time doesn’t mean anything

SO THEYD WORK ASTRONOMICALLY

your jewelled stars are not allowed cut off from your possessions cant have any treasures only uniforms we are all tea-squeezers the refugee syndrome non-person things

PEOPLE SAID HE’D STOLEN TIME

things might not be worth much but it’s the story behind that gives value each of these people these subjects these things are things you can’t do without

GEORGE WENT MAD

I watch a lot of telly.

Ray West, Freida Brobart, Monica Smith
Cherry Tree 2009

Tuesday 16 February 2010

grit


you first come in you’re sick and that slows you can’t be mithered grit me teeth and bear it grit me teeth and keep me head down

called up 1939 went to France Dunkirk had a bad time a bad time

driven to distraction by all the waste of time getting angry doesn’t help you got to somehow slip into a lower gear get through these long days

in a truck for cover

get up when the nurses start clattering early habit of a lifetime bed late after the noise of the medicine the nurses overworking I’m surprised how cheerful they keep

tried to get in the little boat trousers round my neck and the trousers floated away

if you’ve got a decent book get what exercise you can push this wheelchair up and down

people fighting to get on the boat

that’s one thing I never do – give in

and keep a smile on the faces of the nurses

you’ve got to make your pleasure – is there anything that pleases me? - yes everything - grit me teeth and grin

E Wooley
2008

Monday 15 February 2010

stages of grief: 1950

it’s the same a broken heart and physical pain
he died in front of me (talking one minute)
the pain in their face
you feel it
want to do
something and you can’t
the doctors said no

went cold head to toes
and you can’t get warm
when you’ve had a lovely husband
you feel it more

helping people helps
fills a gap fills what’s gone
sorry I never meant
to

break

you can let yourself go
and then you fade
sitting on ice days
not sleeping he died (talking one minute)
fade or you fight it
its always there
1950 as though it was last week as though

you cry alone
there all the time
even when I’m washing
up

a broken heart and physical pain though
everything shut
I put a bolt on the door
said: ‘There is no
good’ and then I was praying
it pulls it pulls
come back at night

come or you just
let your
self
go.

Anonymous
Cherry Tree
2009

Friday 12 February 2010

Diphtheria



the ambulance bringing
ding a ling a ling

she can remember them ringing
them bells

it was one of the common ones
the cough
a sore throat easily contracted
diphtheria scarlet fever
five years old
the cloth stretching across the wall
my father raised a blade

the ambulance bringing

take swabs
of it the children terrified
isolation hospital
their faces
thought they’d be red
scarlet fever
diphtheria

ding a ling a ling

keeping them apart
lockjaw
didn’t talk
to em too scared
peered through a washroom window
one of the kids saw me said
I won’t tell
remember

them ringing the ambulance bringing
ding a ling a ling

them bells.

Dora Boulton, Frank Bryan, Olive Wilson
Cherry Tree 2009

This poem is part of the Patience project, for more information please visit http://patience-project.blogspot.com/