And They All Lived Happily Ever After? ...

InThe Bleak Midwinter

Everyone Needs A Hobby ...

Don't You Just Love an Origin Story ...

Just Hear Them Ting Ting Tingaling ...

RUBBING RAG FARM

RUBBING  RAG  FARM

There is no respect here for the state of art.

Your last active breath ends your favour,

puts you out with the bones and broken hi-fi,

and the stable door I stopped repairing.

At this why bother end of things,forced

muddy to the brick world for a full shilling,

we return home daily to open mouths.

The outhouse and old stables demanding bread.

At this why bother end of things, tradition

grazes where the dirt track turns to green.

Hold your breath between shifts and listen.

Mowing men are singing in crops before the war.

Tony Noon

The Ghosts of Christmas Past ?

RIBBONS

RIBBONS

It was,of course,the railroad.

Made the movement possible.

Made all the big ideas mobile,

and the tracks,yes the tracks.

They kept us focused.

Stopped the concepts sliding.

Made it impossible for

our principles to deviate.

Along the way,maybe,

words were lost. Left

on dull embankments

to be picked over,

but close to the halts

around the long platforms

whole sentences grew.

Metaphors mixed and

waved like crowds

at every passing train.

Tony Noon

NEW FOR 2016

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS on Trampoline

NO , PRIME MINISTER ? IS THERE A PLAN B FOR BREXIT ?

The Way To Touch a Star

THE WAY TO TOUCH A STAR

Not knowing, is the way to touch a star.

Small and half empty you can believe

that across the field and up the hill

you could hold that white light

in cupped hands and believing that,

you never need to go there.

Never need to really try and touch it.

Taller and full of concepts you know

on top of the highest of high places,

even on a ladder, on a tower there

your hand would only shrivel

in cold and empty air and the stars

would seem further from you.

Worse, you know they most likely died

before our fingers learnt to point.

Tony Noon

GREYHOUNDS

GREYHOUNDS

Its so Manhattan somehow.

The girl in the thick hose
with the chick lit and latte.

Comfortable on this concourse
she could be waiting for
a Greyhound to take her
out of this dark city
to wherever her sun is shining.

At day's end though
The Oggy Boys all gobshite
and dodgy designs remind us
this is oh so very England.

Tony Noon

THE MEN ON THE TRAIN

The men on the train

hurtle daily towards

temple grey mornings.

Hearts hidden

behind cell block

stripes they discuss

the whether and whose

wives they are with .

Swinging in sympathy

like eggs on strings

they hope that

no sudden jolt

will expose

their hollow natures.

Tony Noon

Don't Put Off Till Tomorrow ...

AUTUMN IN THE NORTH

The railway lines are browner than ever this year

and where they still melt steel, cold air

masks productivity in shades of grey.

Below me by the portakabin an executive swaps

his suit for shorts and is soon running.

Running hell for leather from the superhighway.

Chasing the ghost of a seventies screenplay.

Tony Noon

Great British Bake Off ... The Story Unfolds

NEW ENGLAND IN THE FALL

                                                     <a href="http://www.freepik.com/free-photo/red-flowers-with-a-                                                               city-background_947984.htm">Designed by Freepik</a>


NEW ENGLAND IN THE FALL

The cities are cooling;

debuilding themselves

as the year ripens.

Soon there will be

no towers,

no reliable terraces

cluttered with chat.

Soon there will be

no love

lost in scrap metal valleys;

no room at boarded inns.

Mirrors will be darkened

or destroyed and the ashes

of brown furniture will be

scattered at boot fairs.

Already, where pie crust

promises fell to earth,

rewritten lines have

broken through.

Cajoling us to start again from here.

Tony Noon

Great British Bake Off

b

BANKERS

Back in the mid seventies , I worked briefly for National Westminster Bank . Straight out of school with an ‘A’ level in Economics . All set for a career in high finance.

I joined one of two large branches in Doncaster and saw on an internal memo that I was their “ supernumerary”... which meant they didn’t really know what to do with me.

Accordingly,I quickly gravitated to the position of Agency Clerk which meant three days a week I was sent out with a senior partner to the furthest outposts of the Natwest empire to provide part time banking services where a full time bank was unviable.

My senior partner, Mr Brown , who looked more like a farmer than a banker with his huge hands and stocky frame , saw himself as something of an avenging angel and our thrice weekly trips often included personal visits to people who had overdrawn.

These were the early days of cash dispenser cards and Mr Brown carried a pair of scissors with him to ceremoniously cut up the transgressor’s access to easy money on their own doorstep.

Monday mornings we pitched up in an office otherwise used by a bus company in Rossington , approximately half an hour from our main branch.

The internet is often blamed , these days , for the decline in local and high street shopping , but  back then , people were still buying at home from catalogue companies such as Grattans and Empire Stores. The catalogue orders were consolidated by local agents , all of whom , it seemed to me , lived in Rossington.

My job , between 9.30 and 12.00 consisted, almost entirely, of checking in hundreds of weekly payments to these firms. Occasionally someone who had queued for thirty minutes or more would try to book a day trip to Bridlington , and I would spend many more minutes trying to explain that we were not a bus company on Monday mornings. This never went down well or easily.

Our aim each week was to lock the doors at midday , balance the tills and get off back to Doncaster as quickly as possible. On many occasions , we overran significantly , which made Mr Brown seethe. We would ride silently back to base , always listening to Radio 4.

If “World at One” started before we hit the High Street , I knew there would be trouble.

As we turned the corner close to our destination , Mr Brown would invariably hit the steering wheel hard before bellowing “ Boot full of money … and some bugger in our parking space”.

Twice a week we trundled down to Crowle in Lincolnshire to manage the accounts of the local farming community. Each time we followed a different route there and back to thwart would be hijackers. Winding trails along misty lanes , the car mysteriously speeding up and braking hard many times , in what I assumed to be part of my partner’s avoidance strategy.

Much later , I discovered that what was actually happening was that when Mr Brown saw a pheasant wandering absent mindedly across the misty lanes, he speeded up in the hope of  hitting it. The braking hard , usually accompanied by an expletive , meant he had missed…

Bus Stop Poem

Bus Stop Poem


Smalltown September Sunday.

Postweek pavements stretch,

thankful as the afternoon sun

penetrates their aching fibres.


An ice cream van , distant

as a lovesick youth ,floats

tunes upon the lazy air

while lunch heavy parents

dig deep to keep kids quiet

while the film is on.


We wait , the dog and me

for a bus that doesn't show

but we are not concerned.

On a day like this we will

walk and enjoy it.



Tony Noon

BACK TO NATURE

BROKEN THINGS

You knew these streets like a satnav,

saw them sunday best and wore their tee shirts.

Now rubble footprints kick half moved earth

and gangs of buddleia gather to heckle.

Only you are waved through.

In this no frills town you were a godsend.

Broke bread with the vanished 

and drank with them from jam jars.

Week after week beneath the smog

you were a lifeline, testing vital signs.

Mending broken things.

Tony Noon

LOCARNO

Locarno

There are two sides to the light fantastic.

Inside,men tipsy and thin as drainpipes,

right as ninepence in the dim balcony.

Outside,women worried and watch clocking,

now the soft queue shuffle has given way

to the hard tap of late stilettoes.

Rolled between them like a thin cigarette

the escape committee convenes weakly

not knowing that forty years on

the mirror ball will find them all

older and no wiser in it’s new home.

Tony Noon

EMPTY FLOOR

EMPTY FLOOR

The thin smile of acoustic air

anchors me;

ties me to the cold north

and it's histories of loss.

The echo of discarnate voice

draws me;

leads me to the dark valley

and it's legacies of ash.

The ricochet of regret

surrounds me;

backs me to the corner

and it's memories.

And lights are changing on an empty floor.

The lights are changing on an empty floor.

Tony Noon

                                                                                    image: www.freeimages.co.uk

THE CIRCLE

I see the sunny days.

The sober managers of building societies,

banks, maybe. Button bright

in their certain trajectories

I see the neat wives,shining.

Millponds of virgin tarmac

hold back trees, allowing

the long hours to hide

small dramas like bones

in lawn tidy gardens.

I see the blue sky corners.

Post Boxes,hungry for gossip,

are gateway and godsend here.

Their slow digestion filling

these avenues with promise

for days, weeks maybe,

until response confirms the circle.

I see the sunny days

in ages tailed back on broken roads;

in the weedful remnants of dead factories;

and in social media I feel I can’t ignore.

Tony Noon

CATS and MATS

CATS and MATS

They were conceptual of course.

Cats, Mats, the whole shebang.

Metaphorical constructs designed

to teach the order of things.

Not real cats. Not mats you

yourself could sit on.

Now though,you have friends

or friends of friends

who see them and when you talk

in quiet corners you wonder

if maybe there really was a cat

and what the mat was made of .

You wonder why they were there.

You wonder most of all who hid

the facts behind the headline.

Tony Noon

GLEAM

By the time you read this I will be miles away.

Not miles. That doesn’t do justice.

I will be an immensity away. Let me explain.

Throughout your lives I was there for you

but never knew you ,could never know you.

I was long gone before any of you were born

But I have reflected often, and you,

clever things, found ways to exploit me.

Found ways to harness my exhaust.

Time in a bottle is a neat trick

but don’t show me the snapshots.

Your entire being is a done deal.

Your maudlin histories are alien to me.

I am ahead of the curve.

Riding the wave and it matters

little to me what lies ahead.

The journey is it’s own reward.

Luckily for you there is no end in sight.

Tony Noon

                                                                                                                       
                                                                           <a href="http://worldartsme.com/">WorldArtsMe</a>

THAT SWING

The taps are out of tune.

Thundering through the wall

their frantic syncopation

celebrates stars while sticks

born hoofers bathe in mud.

Disdaining mills they are

factory fodder nonetheless

manufacturing dreams

to be unfulfilled by millions.

The taps are out of time.

In our bigger picture

it don’t mean a thing.

Tony Noon

DON'T WE ALL

TUBE

TUBE

each day each way

a corridor of crisis.

net generated precedence

for the time constrained.

and the news the views

are almost real

in this text fed medium.

I am my neighbour’s story

reading over her shoulder

until the freesheet drops,

  her fingers fidgeting

      as if drug scandals

           and war scandals

            and celebrity scandals

could leave residues for skin to absorb.

each day, each way

a corridor in crisis.

Ted Hughes Poetry Festival 2016

The Ted Hughes Poetry Festival is an annual event in Mexborough , South Yorkshire , celebrating the work of the former UK Poet Laureate , who died in 1998.

Whilst much is known about the poet's later life , including his marriage to Sylvia Plath , and his affection for Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire , his formative years were spent in Mexborough , where his parents had a newsagent's shop in the late 1930s and 40s.

The inaugural event in 2015 was built around a presentation by Steve Ely about Hughes' early years in Mexborough and a walking tour , now referred to as The Ted Hughes Trail , which takes in many of the places he knew and drew inspiration from ... including The Ferry Boat Inn , and The George & Dragon public house (both still working pubs).

The above poem draws on some of the issues raised in Steve Ely's presentation.

GIRLS ON HOLIDAY

GIRLS ON HOLIDAY

Waves Whisper
to the Girls on Holiday
and in response they dip
a toe and dream of mussels.

Time is kind
to the Girls on Holiday.
They will never be mothers.
A breed apart
they exist for the seashore.

Summer is cool
to the Girls on Holiday.
Full fashion clothed they stroll,
shoes in hand and hearts on fire.

And when the cliffs
are shifting sand the sun
will wink at waves
and they will whisper still

to the Girls on Holiday


Tony Noon

CATCHING THE BULLET

CATCHING THE BULLET

 

Tony Noon looks inside his magic box for the secret behind one of the World's most dangerous illusions 

 

 

I have always loved Magic. It was always there in my formative years . Television variety shows always had a guy ( always a guy in those days ) producing doves and silks from thin air. Always dressed in top hat and tails , perhaps assisted by glamorous young women to help control the menagerie. Even Sooty ( still around today , kids ) used magic in his madcap " performances" with Harry Corbett.  More adult audiences probably remember David Nixon , whose popular shows maintained the variety theme with singers and comedians , but also gave airtime to magic acts from around the world , paving the way for the more elaborate shows fronted by Paul Daniels from the Seventies onwards.

 

My active interest in Magic began in the late Sixties , on mostly wet holidays in Mablethorpe , Lincolnshire. The holiday camp we stayed at had , amongst other things , a club for young people in the evenings hosted by a magician called Poz , aided and abetted by a mischievous monkey glove puppet in the manner of Sooty , as mentioned above. Lots of slapstick and "magic" cakes made in a  piece of equipment I learnt to call a dove pan ... but also some serious magic for the older children. It was here I saw my first live version of Houdini's "Metamorphosis" , where the magician changes place with a manacled assistant locked in a trunk in the rise and fall of a hooped curtain. Paz also did a marvellous routine with the "Chinese Linking Rings" ... large brass rings which he pulled from a purple velvet bag. The sound of the rings and the way they caught the light were as much a part of the magic as the mysterious routine itself . This , for me , is the difference between performing Magic and showing Tricks . 

 

Magicians talk about Effects rather than Tricks. A trick is something which helps the magician create the Effect .  The Effects themselves always challenge our senses. Always demonstrate something which should not be happening. Coins disappearing. Cards changing suit and colour. Elephants and tigers appearing in previously empty boxes ... The tricks , which so many people want to know about are often simple and mundane , but skilfully perpetrated they literally create wonder and amazement.

 

I am interested in the whole range of Magic , from  clever close up work with every day objects to the grand stage illusions, which are less popular than they were a century ago , but which continue to evolve and still find eager audiences in places like Las Vegas. I must say, though, with no disrespect to the many skilled performers across the globe, that I am not keen on Escapology, and I don't particularly like what I would refer to as Stunt Magic. Among the latter , I include "  Catching The Bullet" , where the magician allows a member of the public to fire a rifle at him , appearing to catch a marked bullet in his teeth. I don't know why I don't like it. It has all the elements of a great effect , but the perceived danger takes something away for me.

 

In 1918, a magician calling himself Chung Ling Soo , died on stage in London , performing this routine.  Unfortunately , audiences ever since have believed the routine to be life threatening. In a thrill seeking world this element of "real" danger continues to capture the imagination and the headlines.

 

For me , on England's damp east coast , the mid Seventies saw me full of enthusiasm , with a box full of secrets and a little practical skill.Obviously, I was ready to foist myself on the public. Old enough now to move from the juniors to the newly built Cabaret Club , I put together a small act and put my name down for the holiday camp's weekly talent competition. Ahead of me on the night was a middle aged lady offering , to me , a very flat rendition of " All My Life's a Circle" .

 

As , naturally , I considered myself to be a sophisticated comedy magician , I had already told the Compere that I didn't need any intro music . Consequently , as he announced my name , the band struck up a corny , overfast  snatch of " I Want to Be Happy" to enable me to move to the centre of the cabaret floor. As the last trombone slid back to base , I was met by a deafening silence. There were people on three sides of me but out there in the spot ,I couldn't hear or see any of them. Indeed , the only people I could see were the three volunteer judges. I began , therefore , to pitch my act to them. Witty one liners , Post Cards from the Famous ... all good stuff , I thought as I rehearsed in front of my mirror at home.  Out there , though , I quickly became aware of something. No one seemed to be laughing . At the very least , there seemed to be a horrible time lag between the gags leaving my lips , and the, perhaps, modest laughter reaching my ears...

 

Suddenly I got it. I understood how Catching The Bullet could be for real... In this time distorted world I suddenly found myself in, I could easily have seen and caught a bullet slowly swirling towards me....

 

Somehow , I managed to plough through my act , which culminated in a technically competent "Unequal Ropes" routine . Applause and off , maybe to more pratfall music from the band , but I don't remember. Later in the toilets , a drunk shook my hand and told me I could be the next Paul Daniels. I wasn't , but I still love Magic. I came second in the talent contest . The winner was a middle aged lady singing " All My Life's a Circle"... There were no other competitors.

 

                                 

Card Players in Twilight

CARD PLAYERS IN TWILIGHT


You could name this place DunTalkin.
You could call the day Today.
Nothing else matters with the game on,
and this ebb and flow of pennies
owes as much to the moon
as to poker faces raising stakes.

If you could take a year, take any year,
they would be at this table holding hands;
holding the same hands as the world fades,
slow at first, then fast towards the goodnight kiss.


Tony Noon

AS IF JAMES DEAN

AS IF JAMES DEAN


As if James Dean drove through treacle,
we make slow progress on this dull strip.
Over and over the sun taunts us
as it plunges at the precipice.

As if Batman took the bus to Gotham City,
we are never there while the heels are hot
and fidget awkwardly in clueless rooms,
adjusting masks.

As if Love was drawn roughly
on a breath steamed window,
we are left constantly in cold buffets
to sugar harsh coffee with endless spoons


Tony Noon

Our Little Society

GETTING TO MOSCOW

Bowling Alley to Belorusskaya

is more miles than I care to imagine.

The came from and the going to

spin me between them like a coloured disc

and my both ways perspective

makes each as real

in the thin evolving present.

The night sleeper has rattled me

from grainy sputnik days

towards a hi def hubble cosmos.

Behind me brown manganese

smiles to vanishing points.

Ahead lies Moscow and all it has meant.

Back when, huge balls rumble unseen

Small hands struggle, slowly taking aim.

Learning how to cause effect.

Huddersfield

 

The weather makes me think of Huddersfield. Something about this combination of rain and snow reminds me of monochrome bus rides along the Manchester Road to my student accommodation in Milnsbridge in the mid seventies. The times were damp and rugged and the closed mills were charcoal drawn against huge grey wash clouds.

The Coast Road

THE  COAST  ROAD

Funland isn’t open.

Slots long emptied,

cobwebs mark out

footprints and only

errant light hangs out

where pool and

pinball  played

to the gallery of rogues.

Funland isn’t open.

At the Rendevous

there are few tears

since the smoke ban.

Takings are down

and whatever cloth

they had was

cut to make

small handkerchiefs.

Funland isn’t open,

and this whole road

is a wet weekend

waiting for Spring;

waiting for a hint of warmth

on a cold shoulder.

Funland won’t be open.

Time worn boards

have been renewed,

but at the massage parlour

there is light.

Tony Noon

TALKING THE WALK

Tony Noon throws away the Boy’s Book of Wonder and embraces the virtual world.

Helen had just got back from Vegas. Over coffee I told her how much I had enjoyed the night flight over The Strip and asked if she had gone to see the Aussie male strippers at her hotel.

“No , “ she said “ We went to a show at the Luxor “, which was just around the corner.

Loraine and me had already had a look at what was on offer inside the huge pyramid .

There is something very similar, if you don’t know, on the outskirts of Skegness .

Much smaller of course , but obviously more influenced by Sin City than anything gracing the banks of the Nile. Its full of slot machines as you would expect , but I digress.

Helen is a globetrotter. There are increasingly few parts of the globe that she hasn’t trotted

on. We’ve skipped around in Europe a bit , but we’re not on the same airbus. We weren’t in Las Vegas . We weren’t in Tenerife , but that’s where my indulgence achieved critical mass.

I discovered the joy of google maps some time ago in my business life.  Younger , more savvy technocrats had probably been there long before me and worn the cyber tee shirt ,

but  the first time I realised you can pick a location almost anywhere and drill down through the clouds to hover only feet above the actual landscape , I was hooked , and also a little disappointed.

I knew what you could do in the UK and long ago zoomed down to see the hole in my garage roof  which I really must get repaired .

From above my garden looks as impenetrable as an equatorial rain forest , but you can count the stripes on  my neighbour’s deck chairs. Any actual people you see have pixillated faces, just in case they have been caught somewhere they shouldn’t be.

I had never gone international, though, until I tried , just on the off chance, to look at our Indian Sales Office in Mumbai.

At the back of my mind , I had  visions of narrow streets and corrugated roofs. Pots dangling everywhere, of course.  As the clouds cleared ,however, and I zoomed in closer and closer ,

It became apparent that my ”Boy’s Book of Wonder” view of the world might be slightly out of date.  Skyscrapers and elegant parks made Backbay , Mumbai look more like New York .

I was similarly surprised when I started looking closely at China a couple of years ago.

I’m sure the pagodas are there somewhere , but the rapidly evolving cities west of Shanghai looked very much like Europe .  Street View, another joy ,showed motorways and shopping malls which were depressingly familiar.

But Street View brings us nicely back to Tenerife. When Helen took herself to Los Gigantes last year, I asked Loraine to find out exactly where she was staying .

Each lunchtime I plotted a different excursion , then asked Loraine to text the details over to Helen who was surprised and amused by our detailed local knowledge.

I literally “walked” the streets from  the hotel down to the Marina and was able to comment on the shops and bars . I could almost read the menus.

When she got back home we told her how much we had enjoyed our virtual holiday together.

Therein , of course , lies the rub.  Helen likes the terra firma . Often she knows nothing of the places she visits prior to her trip. The excitement for her is the first hand experience.

When we arrange a trip , I  spend weeks studying the area , the lie of the land , even sometimes learning the lingo . With my new(ish)  tools I can see the accommodation before we book . When we had to abort a planned trip to Rome a year or two ago,  I had studied the area where we would have stayed so well , that my memory of the images I saw on Street View are almost as vivid as places I have actually been.

Some might say the devil is in the detail , but he has the good songs too.  I can’t wait to find out where we are “going” next.