Roots of the House
Š 2015 expresseum poetics press www.expresseumpoetics.org.uk Authors retain sole copyright of their individual poems.
The poems in this pamphlet were created from a poetry workshop at Wigston Framework Knitters Museum. This was part of the Three Houses Dreamed series of poetry workshops facilitated by Mark Goodwin in 2014. Three Houses Dreamed was a Writing East Midlands’ Write Here Residency.
Funded by: Writing East Midlands, Museum Development East Midlands & expresseum poetics
Enigma Ground Floor, Frame Knitters’ Museum Sylvia’s Lovers I remember The Green Space In and Under Shadow Sylvia’s Lovers Thread Well Passage Sylvia’s Lovers Closing the door behind us
Sheila Sharpe John Kitchen Katie Daniels Karen Powell Sheila Sharpe John Kitchen John Kitchen Katie Daniels Karen Powell Sheila Sharpe John Kitchen Katie Daniels Sheila Sharpe
ghost-verses through out
Mark Goodwin
note: to see the ghosts you might need to zoom
Enigma was there another door a thorn in the side of this house here where the cruck of consciousness marks the house’s edge structural faults in the bricks of memory close the eye’s window to what is beyond cobbles lie as if fragments of thought have spilled from the house’s mind watering can exhorts us to drink from memory’s well metal rollers crank back decades metal pan catches the heat of dreams bricks and metal are juxtaposed as tiny panes watch, as slants and levels and angles and heights bewilder seen darkly through glass a basket balances a pump gushes thoughts windows peer as if the concealed cramped shades of knitted memories push against the bricks from within
a girl poet & a boy poet their eyes streaming as smoke rubs all they’ve seen or will glimpse
Ground Floor, Frame Knitters’ Museum Memory tickler for tapioca Mind your head, Grizzly Wold We’ll do one with a motor that whizzes round like hell Lancelot lifted his large eyes What’s a pig’s time worth anyhow ! Splicing tucking stiffening The Boyce Weaver’s Knotter Needle gauges Minotaur Prickers for dropped stitches Breaking the frames 50 guineas reward
two poets’ heads poked into the chimney’s breast via a brickless gap in imagination
Sylvia’s Lovers I. Daffodils wilt from her bodice, more spill from her hand; her long fingers resting where the banister coils to a snake of polished wood. The sheen of her dress yellows to sepia and the heel of her shoe catches on the last stone step.
the bedboard pushed hard against warm chimney bricks the bedspread leaves & beetles stitched in place by neurons pulsing
I remember the step up from the master bedroom to this room overlooking the cobbled yard it would have been mine if I’d stayed here the set of Thomas Hardy novels stacked hopefully on the chest of drawers undisturbed on the dark polished wood the ice of the inherited eiderdown lavender scented soap and a rough flannel folded on the bedside cabinet crisp nights of white dreamless sleep after evenings chain-stitching secrets into daisies and violets.
fat bible by the chimney breast each page a clamped flame growing heat bound by cold leather
The green space feet tread cobbles, trampling thought’s dark grapes a toppled sunflower broken yet tremblingly fertile spills seeds to lie kneaded into doughy earth discarded glass reflects a gravel of morbid memories roots intertwine with cobbles beyond the formed and formal garden weeds of unstructured thought take root a leaf shaped as a heart throbs in a whisper of breeze where the path twists round in ‘U’ turn of recollections of apples, of sin, of Eve embodied green shrubs transmute to chenille shrouded housewives struggling against Society’s restrictions
a faint hiss of sea -through poets passing amongst giant’s monuments of furniture a living-room table pressed under an ocean of cloth
in and under cobblestonedground ingate surface-uneven-yard’s rise of mosscushion softness spongy like tiny wooded hills engulfing the inbetween - cobblesink underwall shade runtish light-starved liverwort groundselanddandelion chickweed by shedwall buddleia-cling
oversee
of eight eyes in centre-web and here there and there here dark rich flattened newsoil shale heaps of cast-by-worms blood red stretches thread thin underneath to undermine
a hiss of moustache a wisp of flat-cap a shimmer of working person a vibrating shape
Shadow inside the front door wall floor wall giant’s shadow blade of light bends to echo the cruck sun melts the key hole doorknob glint a surprise of window decorated glass – leaves and oranges, for when you see in, see out a bit of posh for front door gossip step clean and show off
by their bed facing west a framed doll held in paint’s teeth her tooth-white dress rooting her in the jaw of the house-wall
Sylvia’s Lovers II. I want to kiss her, a little, but I’m aping marble: a violet flame behind glass with shrivelled rose hips; a landlocked roofline rucked up like bedclothes. I am bedwarmer, carpetbeater; a web in a doorway pixellated in lace.
their hair scorches as beetles of sparks crawl through the strands of their receiving
Thread Sewing machine inlaid with mother-of-pearl sings lullabies to the spinning wheel. Decades of secrets and lies trapped between mismatched fabrics a layered patchwork of the past. Pantry floor worn by years of feet a familiar uneven path to tea and chicory essence. Beneath the red brick tiles I sense the roots of the house reaching down towards the well.
a cottage inflated by gone’s moments a vast cottage surrounding two pin-point poets’ movements
Well Deep dark receptacle slaker of thirst feelings, unstructured thought things unthought of, things unspoken inside my mind the well of my inner most being unstructured yet built, deep, dark receptacle water bubbles upwards from the well of house bubbles upward from memory creates more memories of laughter, of love, of lifetimes lived. Of times turning
some poet recognises his other as her painted behind the dry wet of glass
Passage as schoolboys colour thick bands of blue around the coastline a map dark edged in doorspace a pale landmass an island form mineral rich step over soaking up through bricked floorspace the unstudied guide of an unlikely place
a road just beyond a cottage window rumbles parts of voice changed in engines declare travelling far from home’s hook
Sylvia’s Lovers III. They’ve touched her up unnaturally scarlet, plumbed her into shape with verdigris veneer; left only one window for looking in of. One plate missing from a larder of larders. Footprint of a last of lasts.
Closing the door behind us latches grow cold outside on the street a century has passed by unnoticed