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Peter Branson

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Beneath Red Hill

In memory of Ed Wright

i
On holiday, long summer haul, fifteen,
I call on you, tight cobbled space behind
the cinema where Saturdays, aged eight,
from ten-fifteen, I queue for matinees
with mates, clock grainy old B western films.
Blisters my badge of pride, I yearn to be
like you, a working man in your flood prime.
Tarmac and dustcart gangs all take the piss.
I burn brick red. You ride as Tom Mix would.
“Tough sod but fair, Fred Wright,” Jack Jenks has said.

ii 
That stroke draws all your pride, word-shy, grid-locked
with concentration and embarrassment.
You know about the embolism, tick
on, borrow time - yet never tell your wife.
Talk tunes to old times you relent, restore
now bristling Lichfield Street, “A mere dirt track
for cart and carriage” where the nouveaux-riche
with Rolls or Bentley, bottle banks at Stoke,
build villas, ride to hounds, rough-shoot, a short
train ride from enterprise, slum-killing smoke.

iii 
Low Anglican among massed Catholics,
a martyr to hard drink, I watch him edge
to your graveside. Their holy water words
well-spread, crumbs rap the coffin, like raised fists
on angry doors. “Sound bloke, your Uncle Fred.”
Your education life, your geometry
the perfect squaring of a garage base,
you’ve earned your neighbourly footprint, know how
folks tick; part of your signature, your firm
handshake, the solid ground beneath my feet.

Peter Branson, a former Writer-in-residence for “All Write”, has been published by journals including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Fire, The Interpreter’s House, Red Ink and Other Poetry.

Page(s) 54

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