Bottlejack
It came out of Robert Lello’s house at 50 Lower Galdeford.
Still hung on a hook over the range when I was small.
Ludlow Corporation knocked the house down
in the sixties, to build flats for older people.
The garden wall’s still there.
I look at it sometimes.
I knew what this was when I found it. This turned the Sunday beef
above the fire basket, its drip tray underneath.
The Tudors made one worked by weights, or little boys,
or little dogs in a treadmill. This one was Victorian
innovation, made of good brass,
driven by clockwork.
Hook at the top for the rail, hook at the base for the joint. The rivets
have gone. I’ll lift the cover, show you the stilled mechanism.
Once this mesh of cogs and ratchets bared
their teeth and set to work. The key went
here, to wind the mainspring
every Sunday morning.
Brass Gaming Piece
He supposes every man in the trenches must have had one
in his pocket, to pass the time, ease the waiting:
his grandfather’s gaming piece.
Put One, Take One.
He twirls it now, and it swings its fat weight up to settle
in a true gyre, that inertia-whirl before it falls.
Its tip is polished from spinning on mess tins.
Put Two, Take Two.
His grandfather was born in Ludlow, buried in Ludlow.
There’s a list in St. Lawrence’s of all the Ludlow men
who served, but he’s not on it.
All Put, Take All.
Red Bedford Van
We bought it for our year-old daughter.
She ran it round the room, vroom,
on an Indian carpet with a fringe.
We bought it because our first van was a Bedford.
He painted it to match. He sawed out some
window bars to make it look the same.
He wanted a Bedford because we could sleep
in it, go off on holiday. But he didn’t drive.
I had to drive it. I said, I don’t want to drive
a bloody bus. So we got a red one.
Mary Atkin brought in the Dinky Cars model Bedford Van she bought with her husband in 1960.
Poems by Jean Atkin for Museum, Ludlow 2015
Lucozade
Once it was a perk of being poorly
Grapes, a Beano and some Lucozade.
In our world of
Customer Care helplines
Freepost and corporate chat
it’s now one of our five a day.
Bottle; one of thirty thousand
filled on that shift last May
Gulped down outside the library
by the skateboarder afraid
he didn’t get the sense of fun
bestowed on him by the ads.
He couldn’t have seen the bin
right where he was sat
perhaps he was distracted
or dazzled by his hat
Whatever,
that bottle skittles up to the door
a wasted resource
jetsam, landfill,
there’s always plenty more.
Dunkin'
As a frog lays its redundnant eggs
so the Michigan plastic factory
spawns a half million
dunkin’ micro cups
for that mid-noughties
yuletide promotion.
For the frog it’s about generations.
For the Donut people
it’s about penetration.
For the frog
just three from her myriad spawn toughed
late frosts, the minnows
and the diving beetle.
But that’s enough.
And for those Dunkin’ folk
just this single specimen
somehow evaded landfill
allowing us to know they ever were.
But that’s enough.
For what?
Scratching the void
Three hundred million
Lucky Sevens printed.
Four foot wide rolls
tall as a company
a hundred and sixty strong.
John’s last pound
bought a number three from the shop
that had been two feet deep
inside roll ninety one.
Outside, guarding,
a dog with its catch
hope fell to the pavement
with each fingernailed scratch
futile scrapings
to those numbers below.
An artwork of despair at
this milking parlour for
the hopeless.
Poems by Martin Evans
for Museum, Ludlow 2015
Lambert & Butler Blues
This was John’s fifth pack this week
His One hundred and seventieth this year
And his Fourteen thousandth
Six hundred and fortieth since
he decided to look cool along with
his first pint of beer.
This isn’t the pack that will kill him
though it’s assistance is invaluable.
Despite the don’t-use-this-product warnings
John swapped some dole and
some horse winnings
to pay for this box.
John beloved father
and husband to Denise
will be deeply mourned
once claimed by infarction
three days after his fifty-ninth birthday
following an altercation
with a fellow motorist.
He can’t say he wasn’t warned.
Treasure Trove
Mankind in a rose garden
Dug over and sieved
across years
from her plot in Mill Street.
Grating, misplaced,
uncomfortable in the soil
But saved to a tub of
Utterly Butterly.
Oysters to formica,
lead, glass and the willow,
bone and fragments
an archaeological dig.
Changing diet, fashion
and technology
and our untidiness
reflected amid the flowers.
Hit or Miss
Act I
This started out as a good time
what happened next
was an expectant wait
the yearning
this time
please, this time.
Speak to the oracle,
the spatula
mid stream
hit or miss?
Act II
This started out as a good time
what happened next
was life as normal
more good times
some even better
then a dawning dread of late
oh no
oh please, not now
Eight quid in boots
and a dash to the loo
to speak to the oracle
hit or miss
life or death.
Poems by Martin Evans
for Museum, Ludlow 2015