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Minor
Hadleigh Poet Unearthed Hadleigh has
been the home of a cleric burned at the stake, a lesser-known but influential 20th
century painter and for a period in the early 90s it was home to a minor English poet. Ben Tone has
since hung up his books and we believe that he has gone to ground.
Such is often the way with wayward geniuses – it’s either the
booze or family life, which does for them.
Fortunately, we
have been able to acquire a few examples of Tone’s works and we’ve
chosen to showcase the best of them. During his
brief poetic flowering (circa 1991 - 1995), Tone reputedly earned £1.20 in royalties. Clearly, this is hardly recompense for the hours of hard work
that went into his creative outpourings and reflects the pathetic
treatment that poets receive in this country.
Whilst Robbie Fowler can pick up a fat cheque from Leeds when
he’s wearing the sky blue of Man City, our poet is now probably slaving
away in some office for a pittance. On the other hand, people have questioned his talent and have suggested that his later works are immature, mawkish, and repetitive. (His partner's stern judgement echoes down the years: "a self-punishing and depressive set of poems".) We take a slightly more benign view and believe that he’s
probably just been too busy. One
day, Tone
may return. Hadleigh’s
literary critic There is a van
wigwagging On my door-step, cars
hooting And my brain is
struggling for A synonym for “cock
up”. “Sorry mate, no
effing way, Now, if your porch
was two foot Longer or the sofa
two Foot shorter, it’ed
sail in.” The chippie next door
is out, So a screwdriver
serves as A chisel creating
divots In the ancient sash
window. Mate one say
confidently, “I’m confident,
it’ll go in”. The three of us
see-saw the Settee through the
aperture. Mate two, a show room
type Offers a woman’s
joke. “Three words, two
letters each Meaning very small?
Is it in? On the Anglia Evening
News A forty-foot humpback
whale Lies dead on a North
Norfolk Beach.
“How did it ever get there?” Hunched over, can in
hand, Spraying “I love
you” with de-icer In your neat and
girlish script Onto the windscreen
of the Escort You were spotted by a
neighbour- Hood watcher who
salivated At the thought of
reporting A crime involving a
hooded Figure caught in an
act Of gratuitous
vandalism. Moments later, late
for work I Strolled by,
oblivious to your Impulsive gesture,
but I did Note for the first
time, ice and thaw. Chink, chink,
clippers clash As hair falls
silently, gathering In tufts on the white
shroud. Footballers, horses,
shooting, Crimes, punishment,
pain. Men’s talk measured
taciturn. A rimmed mirror,
shining bowl, Condoms stacked like
building blocks, Brylcream jars,
shaving sticks For stabbing blood
from cuts And a penny jar for
brave boys. The barber, hunched
grey-faced Willing, pleasing,
removes a towel Releasing showers of
hair fragments. In the ungarbing
movement, The congregation
stirs. A dee-jay trills,
optimistically, Urgently and out of
place. Clink, clink, door
slaps shut And the cold air
stings The shaven nape of
his neck. My eyebrow must have
punctured like a peach when I hit the tarmac, Large drops of blood
plopped onto my trousers drying instantly. Helped to my feet, I
was taken into a toilet. “It’s all right,
it’ll be all right, don’t worry”. I recognised my face
in the mirror and winced. My eyebrow with a
deep cut, exposed seeds, and the first stagy expletive from me. My helpers wanted a
name and I supplied a name and a telephone number twice. Nausea clung to me
and a stranger put his arm around me. As the sickness
passed and turned to chill I asked for my jacket. At the hospital, I
was asked for my name, date of birth, address, postcode, place of birth,
doctor’s name, next of kin and religion (if any). The doctor and the
nurse, both blondes, prepared the room jocularly. They stung the wound,
bleached it and tugged in a row of stitches, Finally glue (take a
deep breath) was squirted onto my wound. Two syringes with
tetanus were jabbed into the outside of both thighs, The puncture holes
bled. The nurse said they
only usually bleed if you’re nervous. Aged
four, travelling to school alone, by bus, he hatched a plot to steal a
shoebox of Lego pretending it was his own Some years
later on the eve of his First Confession he weighed up this crime,
committed in the limbo between Original Sin and the Age of Reason, and
sure in the knowledge that he had escaped the clutches of the secular
powers defied the Church but confessed to the lesser charges of swearing,
fighting and cheeking his mother. John
Menzies,
Rochdale, in the days before instant specs, awaiting another fitting, he
stole a Sven Hassel (Waffen SS unit slaughter partisans on the Russian
Front). Two excuses
this time: impending blindness and stealing books could not be theft -
knowledge should be free. He wore his
glasses in Charlie Cragg's maths lesson, only Bren Fenney noticed, so he
put them away for seven years. We fold back
the nettles to let her pass. Country-raised
she flinches from their sting, Looks for dock
leaves and rosary beads And berates me
for my lack of fore-thought. He blinks and I
read his dash-dot As sympathy
and/or shock at the onslaught. We've just left
the bypass and the beaten path And strayed
into the gap between ditch and crop: Our Sunday
jaunt to see the ducks and ford Of
"Suffolk's prettiest village" is off track. Only she
remains unchanged, He and I have
swapped roles over a time-span Of twenty-five
years: I cajole; he's silent. She's ill
equipped for this expedition, Ill-prepared
for my "idea of a stroll", sixty. Her back hurts,
her feet ache, she's gagging. What's there to
see, only the back of my heels. I see rape and
familiar undulations. (What does he see?) Passed the
ford, the chicks ("You can see them in the park.") The teashop 's
shut. It keeps pub hours. Lost in my
English country garden In a month
without rain the colour has bleached from the garden Leaving only
the lilac of the buddleia with it's flotilla of red admiral And the
wallpaper pink of the hollyhock (Nature assists
a poet who sees only the common or garden). From my vantage
point amongst the plastic furniture Ants evade
heaps of white powder, Birds swim high
in cool air-streams And lying in
wait for an in visible fly, Wasp-like
creatures hover under the plastic lean-to. If I live to be
100 would it be worthwhile studying the manuals? As millions of
nameless creatures are born, Grow and die
lost in my English country garden. Meanwhile she
pads around with swollen ankles, Heavy with
child, putting names and faces to her hardy annuals. Why not throw
Howard's End away and retain those two magical words?
Ceasing to
notice everyday objects, the surrounding fields, my travelling companions,
I noticed the ease of my movement, From the hips
forward, Stepping into
the moment. Ceasing to
notice my blistered feet I noticed the sense of ease From the heart
outward. The emotion of
movement. Ceasing to
notice past and future I noticed the newness of now From that
moment onward the realness of life.
Roles, roots
and relationships No one speaks
to me. My poets lie
silent. Words on a page. Epitaphs. No one gives me
answers. My poets lie
silent. I am distanced
from life and community by white goods and fear. I'm drowning in
the shallow end of a cultural void. No club, no
pub, no church, No party, no
people. No one speaks
to me. My poets lie
silent. I'm a man
without a role, In a world
without a soul. Making my
impression, I signed for
someone else's meal, Sat, watched
and waited And was there
when we mattered. Hailed at five,
I found her kneeling (Pethedene's brief respite fading) And as distress
took hold She accepted
the chemical mother of mercy. After fifteen
hours in the green birth ward A doctor with
her plunger Plucked my
eyes/nose baby Into my small
vale of fears. A comic touch:
"some mistake", She said,
"She's a girl not a boy". From the crowd
emerged Our
gift-wrapped guest watching. Our daughter
dazing into Perspex space, The odd
birth-jolt zipped Through her
fingers and Temporarily
shorted my ego. The next day in
St Helens Street Dozens of
birthed people Functioned by
seemingly oblivious To the first
and last things.
Every attempt
to catch the moment Lacks
intensity, loses colour. Even these new
words make it Anecdotal and
succeed only in Nullifying the
minute of your moment. O comes closest
and forces me to Recall the
purple and curls of that First sighting,
when the doctor Raised her
finger and pointed At the circle
framed around your head. Not being able
to make sense of it Caused me to
stay silent when your mother Enquired as to
what I'd Seen: I
accepted what I couldn't understand. Puke'um le
spuke'um, nappy time The fat cat
baby eyeballs Blue and white,
bath-tile shadows Her hands
starring the heavens. "shush,
shush". Rigid in my
arms From the
colicky red child Waves and waves
of crybaby Then her white
dabs fade and peace. Dandlin my
darlin, standing Half-dressed,
sleep overcomes us Knees braced
against a swinging Crib, I lay her
down to sleep. Zoom lens Into that
moment: a row, a tear, Soon lends Itself and
takes form on the page. Close up On the minutiae
of daily life Closed up Tight confined
in the British family way. Photopoet Steps back,
reflects, but doesn't interact, Poetographer Who faced with
blood and fears goes for the pen, Never lies But crops his
metaphors to fit the frame Never spies On your
emotions but snatches it for the notebook. Searching for
meanings in doodles Every time I
put pen to paper It is only a
daft caper Because each
doodle is a face Clearly of the
Caucasian race. I begin with a
lantern jaw (that seems the easiest to draw) Then next we
have the colly ears, A man of early
middle years. Depending on
the mood I'm in He's wearing a
scowl or smiling. He gets a break
with a hooter Which means
he's not gay or neuter, For this is a
fine boxer's nose Marked by
fights and many woes. The eyes mark
me as an artist As they reveal
neither soul nor twist. So sorry to
this poor bloke Sorry to all
the cleaning folk Who have to
empty my office bin And find the
same silly grin. Baby bottle me Barrow
shipyards years before In a flurry of
bikes A red bus eases
through The chippie and
her cold sore Smiles toothy
Irish At an
apprentice joiner Date romance
love marriage Baby bottle me Thirty-two
years later Baby bottle
mine Isn't the world
over-loaded with spade a spade folk? The
tight-lipped and the tight-arsed. ("It's the
water down here And infrequent
bowel movements".) Make an
impression as Dale Carnegie said, Smile; say my
name and I'll love you. Delight me with
your gleaming whiteness, Render my knees
knockable. More dentine,
less lip. Spit, brush,
rinse, parade And display
them like it 's January and it 's Inauguration Day. Could I have
really said? "There are
only three important things in life: Love, God and Family" Like some Vichy
propagandist? Could I really
have stood at the back of the old church and thought? "Continuity
and family, the old and the new save me from politicians, isms and
news"? Did my
Brother-in-Law say, "You know, it's Volvo time" When I
discussed children and transportation. Am I nearly 33?
This year I
purchased: a dishwasher and a microwave, engaged a woman "to do"
and two child minders, And now I order
my veg weekly. And I've filled
them with disposable nappies, a play gym, formula milk and baby rice.
For six nights
I slept soundly, After short
days, filled with telly and torpor, In our parents'
houses, under strange duvets, On leaden
futons, with our baby's carrycot besides us. Whilst I slept,
you, at every sigh At every
whimper, every cry, At every
half-articulated "m-m-mommy" Had stretched
out your palm and laid it on her chest, Or searched
out, found, and replaced her dummy, And she had
fallen back into her dreamlessness. Upon our
return, you put her to bed, Dazed and
drunken on your milk. Yet when she
awoke, alone in her room She woke me And made the
fairy lights of the intercom dance in our room.
One
last try (The death of Yugoslavia) There is a moment Before everything shifts, Before continents split And a systems falls. The camera catches it And the commentator Says “he fell
silent”. In the silence Two hundred and fifty
thousand Souls are held still, Girls and women are
unraped, Villages and towns are
unravaged And a million refugees
hesitate. There is a before and an
after, Only now it can be told How the ambition of a few Hold the fate of us all. Fantasy
Football (or what have they to prove?) The rain soaks my
classic Juve shirt (the coarse old cotton
gives me chronic nipple rub). The men are playing being
boys again, Running into space and
attempting Cruyff turns. But our goalie won’t
dive, And there’s grit in our
lens And hey get a life’s
just nutmegged our spirit. Headlights,
streetlights, Tea-time, Anytown Street: A workday November
evening. On the shopping centre
scaffolding He stands for the third
time, This time dazed with
sleeping pills, He launches himself
forward, Reportedly, jumping (not
falling) beyond the crowds. On the Tuesday and
Wednesday nights, He had made the same
journey And had rung his mum to
ask permission. Why was he never
sectioned? A sensitive boy who took
the world’s despair to heart. One of eight. His parents tired but
resigned, The three years of
threats and attempts had warn them down. Twenty one years and only
his battered baccy tin to show for it.
What is Art? Surely not a black print
in a black frame? His distended “crap”
had annoyed a woman And she’d debated with
him. Starring out across the
wide Mersey I tried to reassure and
educate him. I spoke of Van Gogh’s
stacked high Unsold in his life-time And later marketed
beautifully, Then of photography and
books. He remained sceptical
throughout But listening, I think. Elder brother, educator. Later on in a pub, In different company, I took pomposity to its
extreme And when asked how
“I’d like to die?” Said, “Stabbed in a
literary argument”. I’m floundering under
my own gaze. She’s slammed shut the
escape hatches Marked joke, anecdote,
prevarication And forced me to plunge
there, Go down deep into tense
self Slice through our surface
tension, Search in bubbles of
clear air For my shopping list of
intentions. Sinking fast, failing to
respond, The engine turns but
won’t articulate, articulate And coughs out only I, I,
I, I…. Until bumping along the
stony bottom Of my pyramid of needs I choke on a bouquet of
weeds. Don’t leave me, (my hand gripped tight by
her) don’t go. Two scenes separated by
twenty years. The first, with me, a
small boy, Bathed in the freshly
laundered light Of a washday Monday
morning in June, Standing, preciously
alone, in the backyard Of a neat mid-terrace, With the tub churning
over The Sunday-best sheets And a still-vigorous
woman Working. The second, with me,
rather lost In a room barely lit by
January, A TV set whispering to a
collection Of empty vessels; I’m sitting by her
side, Providing nothing more
than a hand As an old lady gives up
the ghost. Brutal honesty, I don’t
appreciate. You shove your reality in
my face And like a mugger, you
don’t await My reaction. In Winston’s Pizza
World (Bulldog jowls hang down
over us, spitfires over salad
bars), it’s Dunkirk for me. I’m told to confront
the facts. Misjudging you was always
my prerogative, Filial links positively
ensured A blinkered view. Yes, I made choices: I
left. I can’t have it back, I never had it, It was never mine to
take. So face up and accept the
future: A birthday card, a late
present And the occasional phone
call. This is Berlin so where’s
the bunker?
How
will they be measured? Like
miles on a motorway, Like
shingle on a spit, Like
flies on shit, Like
fans on a terrace, Like
laps in a race, Like
lines on a face, Like
stars in space, Like
puddles in the rain, Like
silver in the pocket, Like
hares in a field, Like
tins on a shelf, Like
wings in an aviary, Like
medals for bravery, Like
nuts in a cake, Like
drinks at a wake, Like
tiles on a roof, Like
miles on a motorway. How
will they be measured Those
days without purpose? “Fxxx’s
not one of my words,” She
said, as she bent over Clipping
another toe nails Onto
Sunday’s supplement. I’d
come into ask whether Tea or
coffee? And found her Bent
over, a Degas ballerina In a
dressing gown, so I sat on her. “Why
don’t you make me a Tea or
coffee,” she exclaimed, “I
was all relaxed when You
came in.” “If I’d made Tea,
you’d have said, “What
the Fxxx’s
this, I want coffee.”” As
grimacing, I face the onslaught. Towards
me, the wind on her back Her
face haloed in snow, She
strides. She
wears red leggings, To
just below the knee And
walking boots. In the
muffled street, She
smiles A
small red smile. Her
calves are bare. My
mother uses it, My
brother uses it To
describe a predilection For
Shostakovitch Number Five Instead
of Manchester garage bands. I say,
its part of growing up, Living
life and growing old. Still
from the perspective Of
seventeen and fifty seven It
seems appropriate. “You
look like a gymnast,” she
said, as I proudly displayed
my pectorals. James
Caan, I thought In
that film. The rought, Tough,
arrogant brother, Though
to be hones There
was more of Michael In me. The
ungainly gait of the dancer as she walks away Toes
tap, hands clap, Thighs
slap, hearts pump, Eyes
flash, lips clash, Feet
slam, dance steps. Dance
steps in the sand, Kisses
left on my hand, Time
spent between dreams, Lost,
left, lovelorn. I was
captured in the library By
some sixth-from types. Grabbed
by the balls And
shoved against the shelves. A
shaven headed brunette Said,
“Listen to this.” No,
did I like it? No, |