The Clays Poetry Page
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The Clays Poetry Page
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Sandre's poems and short story prize winner
News Flash Sandy now has a blog. Please click on link at bottom of the page
From the Blog page you will find a link to her other site covering Ghost Stories
We have now had published by Rhapsody for All a collection of Wigan poems under the title of Wigan Journey: Past, Present and Future.
'Go time-travelling through the centuries in Wigan and Leigh. This book is your ticket to a wealth of history yes, there's more than pits, pies and the Pier.' - Rod Riesco, Editor Current Accounts magazine.
Shortly after moving to Wigan in 1997 we started writing poems associated with Wigan partly as a contemporary comment and in a search to find out about Wigan's rich history. The poems were not written in any set pattern simply as the inspiration came. This collection is set out over 35 pages covering 36 poems and priced to sell at £2 per copy plus 60p p&p. Email jwakizashiclays@aol.com or phone 01942 221475.
For those of you who did not see the piece by Geoffrey Shyrhane in the Wigan Evening Post 4th March 2004 please click on this link
http://www.wiganfolkclub.co.uk/
Click on news and scroll down to the item March 4th 2004 then click to see.
We havehad a favourable review of the collection as follows
Wigan Poets success
John and Sandy are briliant poets and stalwarts of Write out Loud's various nights . Read…
Susanna Roxman's Review of
WIGAN JOURNEY by John & Sandré Clays
as published on New Hope On-Line Review
"These two poets, apparently a husband-and-wife team, write regional poetry in the best sense. Their poems are perhaps not extraordinary, but certainly well written, informative, and lively. Sometimes the mood is wistful, though never sentimental, sometimes playful. John and Sandré Clays are very similar in their range of interests as well as their style, with its deftly used slant rhymes and true rhymes. If this hadn't been stated explicitly, it would have been almost impossible to tell which contributions are by John and which by Sandré.
The region is that of Wigan and Leigh in north-west England. I only know Wigan through Orwell's famous documentary novel THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER, about unemployed workers in the area. There is clearly much more than that to the past and present of Wigan, however. I feel that I have learned a lot from this little book, and that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to visit the places it describes.
While John writes about 67 miners who perished in 1908 because of an accident, there is also, and more often, a longer perspective back in time. Sandré wonders if a river called Dunglas in the Arthurian legends could be identical with the Douglas:
Then honoured would be Wigan's name
If verified this fable
The locals could flog Arthur mugs
And miniature round tables
The relatively distant past held its horrors, such as the baiting of badgers and bears, and, as in a neat villanelle by John, armed robberies. On the other hand, not very long ago people in the neighbourhood
. . . had more control, with mines,
mills, more employment . . .
John honours a vicar called William Arthur Wickham for his work with the poor, his pioneer photography, and his building projects:
Altar stained glass window
lights way to lasting legacy
Especially Sandré celebrates the natural surroundings of Wigan:
Yesterday I stumbled upon beauty.
Without warning it reared up and bit me
She has many well observed details: botanical names abound, a swan lies comfortably on "a rusted upturned trolley", a heron flies uncomfortably close, "almost clipping/your shoulder", and horses come in different colours, like "soot on brown". And her BARKIN', about "a daylight dawg", is delightful; perhaps it owes something to T. S. Eliot's OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS:
That son of a bitch!
. . .
When the moon's on the high
and light's in retreat
then the blackness speaks
and he curls in the peat.
Yep, he dreams of another
yappin' day on the run
and a romp with his lady
in the cosy old sun.
The cover of this pamphlet is rather dull, but I have few other objections to WIGAN JOURNEY."
GREAT UNCLE ARCHIE
(2nd Prize Winner Tamworth Writers Short Story Competition 2001)
He was the memory that dared not speak its name. No likeness existed of him in the family album. He was never mentioned in conversation, polite or otherwise and it seemed generations had wiped him out as though he had never been born, eliminated like a nasty disease.
In fact, it was completely by chance I stumbled upon the secret. This came to light when Aunt Muriel died and the old house was up for sale. Mother asked if I would go there to sort out some of the fixtures and furnishings. My boyfriend Stephen came with me to lend a hand and soon the place was like a dust bowl as old drapes were taken down and carpets ripped up.
It was then that I saw it, trapped like a desiccated leaf between the floorboards. Thinking it to be nothing more than a bit of old newspaper I jerked the object from its resting place so roughly that it almost tore in half, yet something prompted me to look more closely. Carefully piecing the gaping bits together, I examined the faded sepia markings beneath the light of Muriel's old standard lamp.
An ancient wedding photograph revealed itself, the bride quaintly attired in the trailing dress and long drooping veil after the prevailing fashion of the early 1900's. Next to her, stiff-necked and rather dapper, stood the bridegroom; a nervous grimace partly concealed by the facial fungus of the day. Probably he would have been considered good looking in his time but I could never abide moustaches and his was a whopper. Stephen was fascinated by the picture.
'Family history can be so interesting.' he remarked. 'Why don't you see what you can find out about it? There could be a really good story there.'
When I took the photo home to show mother her face blanched visibly.
' Archie! 'she spat out the word like a tormented tomcat. ‘Great uncle Archie! Where on earth did you get hold of that? No don't tell me, Aunt Muriel's house! I always suspected she had a sneaking sympathy for him.'
That was how I learned about the family black sheep; our proverbial skeleton in the closet - Great Uncle Archie. What had he done to be so detested - was he gay? It had been a shameful offence in those rather judgmental days. Or could he have been a thief, caught and convicted, rotting away in gaol? Was there a history of insanity in the family? I pictured a raving maniac locked in the attic like the mad wife depicted in my favourite novel. Even so, such vilification from mother seemed overly harsh to my rather liberal way of thinking.
At first she refused to speak of the matter, but I begged and pleaded until finally my continual badgering broke down her resistance.
'It was all the fault of Great Aunt Hermione. She never fitted in with the rest of the family. Always looking for new experiences, new highs. I expect today she would have been on cocaine or heroin or some other depraved diversion. Still, we never suspected even she would stoop to... ‘
Her voice trailed away in mid sentence. She walked over to the drinks cupboard, opened it and produced two glasses and a bottle.
'You'll need this when you hear what I'm about to tell you,' she sighed.
'Hermione brought him home one evening to meet grandmother. Everyone was so pleased she was considering mending her ways and settling down at last. And by all accounts he would have been perfect - handsome, formal, deferential, exactly the type to fit in with the family...' she shook her head sadly.
'Yes, yes, go on! ' I prompted.
'But his smell betrayed him immediately.'
By now I could scarcely contain my impatience and curiosity as she paused to fill the glasses and handed one to me.
'Smell,' I countered, 'What was it?'
Throwing back the rich red liquid in one gulp she leaned close and snarled out the words:
'You know the smell. Human! He was human, remained human and would not convert! Hermione turned her back on her whole vampire heritage to marry a human.'
'Couldn't the family have, well, sort of converted him against his will so to speak?' I asked.
'Hermione wouldn't hear of it. Threatened to put a stake through her heart if the family so much as looked at his neck.'
I didn't ask any more questions; just sipped my glass of blood thoughtfully.
Later, at the approach of dawn, I returned to my coffin and reflected on what she had told me. I was glad I'd uncovered the secret of Great Uncle Archie. Mother's reaction said it all. It proved that the timing was not yet right to introduce my boyfriend Stephen into the fold. If they thought old Archie was bad - what would they make of the local vicar?
some local poems by Sandré
FULL CIRCLE
A child of Standish
Myles higher than the rest
Wigan's own Pilgrim Father
Who sailed away in 1620
Aboard the Mayflower
From Cape Cod Bay
He cut exploratory swathes
Into new territory
To the dismay
Of Indians chiefs
Who paid for their hostility
Lured to a fatal ambush
And the creation
Of New England's
Plymouth plantation
Today in gratitude
For implementing
The American dream
On Massachusetts shore
An adored bronze effigy
Of Miles bestrides
The granite tower
In Standish, Wigan
A family home demolished
His dynasty
Like many native Americans
Extinct
PORTENT 1914
It wasn't a bird, it wasn't a plane
It wasn't an airship
Or a German zeppelin
It wasn't a spaceship
With little green men
('Greys' they call them
Nowadays)
It wasn't Superwoman, Piefaceman
Or Superclog
It wasn't an angel
It wasn't God
Across the sky
Flaring yellow and blue
Zooming ribbon of fire it flew on
Then ignited
Like an explosive device
Though it wasn't a bomb
Arriving when it did
A harbinger of war
On the field
At Appley Bridge
A meteor
ORWELL'S WIGAN -1936
Up north
Fish out of water
He trawled the canal
For literary fodder
Absorbed the
Slag piles
Heaving chimneys
Snatched inspiration
From depravation
Some well-heeled locals
Branded his work tripe
And wished
He'd gone to Warrington
Or Bolton
After the hype provoked
By 'Road to Wigan Pier'
He never returned
But took as souvenir
A pair of clogs
Before he popped them
General poems by Sandré
The Chatterly Legacy
Orally coarsens the user
Trivially used makes little sense
Could be argued
Linked to violence
With humour can be tolerated
But in literature
It crucifies romance
No love
Just the act
Just the doing
I listened to a poem once
The woman's voice was lyrical
Until she used it
As if she raped her poem
Other sounds and phrases
Disappeared
So all I could
Think of was
She said that word.
Creator
An indeterminate period of darkness
passes and then you come to me,
bid my systems shift,
tabulate a constellation of permutations
until the void is filled, tablets engraved
Lazarus rises God lives!
Of course it's all in the mood.
Sometimes tuned in, a cerebral symphony
unfolds as you play me
Like an adored instrument,
a Stradivarious perhaps.
Others there is only flawed input,
malfunction and innate inability
to comprehend a deity's acrimony
as you shut down,
maybe confront
your own dark space.
Pancakes
They've eaten away the years
Eroded decades
Like Christmas, Easter,
St Valentine's Day
Always the ritual
Don't think of cheating
With a packet mix
Pancakes are an art form
You have to suffer for your art!
Memory paints a different ritual
Performed amidst the swell of mountains
Alpine lakes, flowers,
Testosterone in lederhosen
Yodelling, cavorting, slapping thighs
Any excuse to force feed us
Surgary pancake, its aroma
Mingling with the pungent
Energy of pheramones and
The urgency of anticipation
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John's Poems
Local Poems
ON YOUR HORSE
They have changed the junction, at The Saddle;
the three routes out of town, south and west
have been there for some time; so much so
A 49 on a Roman alignment, with Ormskirk
and St Helens coming later
All change
If you can picture Wigan in an earlier age,
bring to mind medieval street plan, as in principle,
it is today; you would see that after going down
Wallgate and Crossing the Douglas
the three branches fan out
All change
Such arteries had in mind animal traffic
Come the Industrial Revolution, petrol engine,
twentieth century advancement for the second time
In a short space of 40 years necessitated
improvement of the carriageways
All change
Lancahire and Yorkshire railway line, from Wigan Wallgate,
crossed Ormskirk Road after 1848. Subsequently Newtown
mushroomed up the slopes included The Saddle Inn, which
by the turn of the century, at the funnel section
had left its eponymic epitaph
All change
Altered and upgraded in 1960 to a roundabout
dispensed with point duty policeman and widened
Adam Bridge. Yet a duplicate bridge was planned
and an elongated Gyratory that would speed traffic
around and around
All Change
If the Romans returned today they would comment
and make discreet enquiries as to why the road under
the railway bridge has not been brought into account. Fresh
routes and brand new Robin Park water crossings
but future Saddle traffic still slow
No Change
GATHURST PAST THIS WAY
River flows through bed of the valley
Flanked either side by feeder foothills
As it has done from beginning
Trees climb slopes
birds fly high
Then man passes this way
with pack horse
Initially crossing course by fording
Later upgraded to wooden bridge
Superseded by parallel cut
Trees climb slopes
birds fly high
Two stone arches now span both waters
Hissing headlong rush of steam follows
Iron girder above gentle drift
Trees climb slopes
birds fly high
Out of hillside viaduct traverse
Carrying traffic north/south over all
Not permitting sight of former lives
Trees climb slopes
planes fly high
What if a spaceship hovered
then left?
General Poems
Escape
I like a drink
Because then I don't have to think
Not to think, no reality
Bliss
Then sleep
I might give up the drink
But I don't want to think about it.
Published in Rhapsody In Two available inc p&p @ £4.75p
Changing Nature
Hopping about on my excuse for a lawn,
A small bird, foraging for food. Not many
Visit now and I can't spot the robin in summer.
Is this a general decline in garden callers,
Less birdsong or the tiny size of my garden?
But then hedgerows have gone, to create
Greater spaces, that leads to less habitat.
Some blame magpies, even noise intrusive,
Blanketing out like pond weed.
Oh for the tranquillity of the song
Of a bell fountain, skirting the surface
And the tortoise munching clover,
As if his world, would go on forever.
Showtime
Speckled sky of autumn,late afternoon sun
Shaded shadow fans out across landscape.
Then brighter as rays reflect on armour,
As the knight on horseback is led in,
By page. Like a forerunner of chauffeur driven,
Which in turn is awakening of dark senses.
Anticlimatic rumbling spill, slowly at first,
Then traverse field of engagement. Adversary,
Conspicuous by absence of presence.
Someone else's hand in this transformation,
Leads on whispers that change en mass,
As lungs fill to capacity, rising to a crescendo.
Not for the first time, have the fanatics
Been promised, built on exaggeration,
An extravaganza of unrivalled entertainment,
Only to have it erased as though,
It is written in pencil, not ink.
ON ATTENDING REQUIEM MASS FOR A POET
Forget all the pomp and majesty
of Mother Church and the holiness
of being in God’s House as you are left
to reflect on being part of a secular
spontaneous applause that broke out
as one; as all together we responded
not once, but the like on three occasions.
On singing the first hymn Abide With Me,
the space was so full you could be forgiven
for thinking you were at a cup final.
When the proceedings reached the end game
Kevin, with emotion, that came good
sang the song inspired on waiting
on Widnes railway station that somehow
reflected the image of Richard
on the reverse of The Order of Service
That brought about the first thank you, which had
everyone going for it and you
acknowledged to your God that you were there.
This was not like the ripple that built to a crescendo
on reaching the Abbey doors, some years ago;
no this was full on, straight in and sustained
Phillip, Richard’s brother remembered him
with such kindness wit and humour that
we were off again, same again please.
But no, we were not finished yet after some
loud noises on the speaker, Richard’s voice
came to us. Here was his body laying before
the high alter whilst we listen to him reading
his poem, I Rely On You. This man
went out with a bang; we clapped, the third time.
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Poetry Participation
Our Wigan poetry collection mentioned above has now been published under the title 'Wigan Journey'
"Go time-travelling through the centuries in Wigan and Leigh. This book is your ticket to a wealth of history yes, there's more than pits, pies and the Pier."
Rod Riesco, Editor, Current Accounts magazine
and is available from us direct at a 'priced to sell', price of £2 (or by post £2.40.) You can catch us at The Seven Stars, Wigan, Wigan Folk Night Thursday or The Citadel St Helens Originality Night. To order either phone 01942 516114 or email jwakizashiclays@aol.com
JWakizashiCLAYS@aol.com
We are members of Write Out Loud group Bolton
Next meeting Sun 19th Nov 2006 8.00pm at Howcroft Inn, Pool St, Bolton.
Entry: £1 donation requested
and Lancashire Authors' Association
We regularly attend the Dead Good Poets Society Open Mic Poetry Event First Wed of every month Third Room, Bistro, Everyman,Hope Street, Liverpool. DGPS can be contacted on 0151 709 5221(Tues & Thurs) E-mail sarah@deadgoodpoetssociety.co.uk www.deadgoodpoetssociety.co.uk
If you are into poetry at all you should make yourself known to Write Out Loud, a Bolton based group promoting poetry across the north and abroad. Meetings for poetry reading, every third Sunday of the month at the Howcroft Bolton 8.00pm Contact Julain Jordon or Dave Morgan E-mail julianjordon@clara.co.uk
Further events at The Octagon in 2007
Some other Links
Wigan Look pages www.LQQK.co.uk A place for Wiganers http://www.lqqk.co.uk/
Bank Street Writers BANK STREET WRITERS http://hometown.aol.co.uk/bswscribe/myhomepage/writing.html
New Hope International Review on Line New Hope International Review On-Line http://www.nhi.clara.net/online.htm
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