Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

484 Followers 589 Following

Writer, gardener and conservationist. Lots of interests and endlessly distracting hobbies like music, literature, nature writing and poetry. North-east England. Writing at https://robgalpin.substack.com

Plantation Hill Seeing myself beneath, or between, the hugely ridged and rolling tyres down the tarmac muddy track. The light therefore on what were pines and blue and bleeding spruces: plucked and piled and no serious matter as I blithely, anyway, passed in my mossy, lucky car. Then the spill, that pick-up-stick sprawl further down the row, an incredible thuddery rollery sliding down the grating hill in the noon and gentle sun, muted Verdi on my radio. And to my mind, as I recall, in my rear-view out they white and un-helmeted crawled.
Several brown packets of seeds
Cold frosty morning in an allotment. The trees are bare and the sky is blue.
The martial tendency in the discos then. The beats all sparkling. Stars all sparkling. She’d taken summer and hugged it tight. No brainscan for loosened marbles. Not Fontainebleu. Not Deauville. Bognor. To which she turned her back, squatting in the resinous night-time park. That hot and horsey stream. Those grave Cedars of Lebanon. Spruces thirsting in their shade. Oh for that hot stream, us only partly naked. Sit, she said, the window open. Is she now the barber? The largeness of a moment on a kitchen chair wedged in a steaming bathroom. Shoulders shudder. I wonder now if here were also evergreens. Shuddering. Rubbing the fluff from the repeating needle. Taking the pink Bic razor to her legs.
Green, pointed shoots of Arum maculatum (lords and ladies, cuckoopint) emerging from brown leaf litter
Ecstasy No tastemakers prepare as I have prepared. You, who were threaded into bed, prepared. And glowing: cheeks and nose all glowing. I was all for tearing off the perforations of the day. The day, in fact, a slab of grey, but so what with the bath so hot and the cheeks all glowing so. No courtiers. No attendants. The wallpaper here was ridged and cream but oh how I stripped that, ripped that. Such ancient paste. Such elbow grease. Beneath the yellow middling rose the pink slit of sunset closed, and this view now is its reverse; the season set to shit. No politics as yet – we have all been having so much trouble. The sun! I do remember! Purples, pinks and oranges but it has been a canny while. Let me instead drag across this television set. Dusty. Doillied. Moveable on casters. A great surprise to both of us as the second final episode begins.
Pink and purple lungwort flowers emerging from dark brown buds. The leaves are light green and leathery with faint pale spots
A stream in a woody area of an allotment, an old tyre and other rubbish lie around. The stream is quite bare of vegetation on one side
The Black Cassette she has arranged her tape recorders on the floor masking-tape microphones gimcrack instruments a massing of sounds and tongues she flew to your country all diphthongs and guttural and you, careful scribe, unable to quietly ink her
a question of how to attend to your responsibilities in the grey town in the cold without the turn to cypresses or far mountains there is an air to it, a touch to it in the moment you lean your bike against a bench and the sun is clearing or obscured, and the trees are leafing or unleafing and you are facing fully outwards attending to yourself
Large collection of slimy looking chestnut-brown fungi growing out of dead elder wood
Confluences I the long train south— horses or sheep or cows along the river mud, mainly, and green the purple mist of birches hills and drainage II it is only an old town delightless— not its fault but in the edgewood coppiced willows greening snowdrops a settled waiting III in a circle by the reed-grass they have shored their tents against the river— the city rubbish the newly-planted rowans IV an old walk through the double-rivered town remember the reflected spiral footbridge— its rotted steps the way across this water and the next
An open grassy area surrounded by trees - frozen paths and blue skies
midwinter wood the white sun cut again and again by black hatching nothing moving only there— a displacement of snow a squirrel gliding grey over grey alder to alder to widening ice
Winter scene with a low sun, late afternoon. Dark hedgerows along a wide path covered with a sheet of ice. A stark tree rises from the hedge on the right
Winter snow scene - a path leading down to an allotment gate, a wooden fence to the left, a large cherry tree to the right
A mass of black trees and twigs at dusk
A newly constructed dead hedge in some allotments
An old washing up bowl outside on some grass, full up of broken glass next to a yellow bag of ancient beer cans
Allotment boundaries of old garage doors and corrugated iron, at dusk
The cover of a book - “A Land” by Jacquetta Hawkes
A big many-branched beech tree in a wood, on a cold dark misty day
The Cathedral Concert We sit in interlocked chairs— Bible readings and Christmas poetry through a booming, echoing mic. At first I am stoic. Then the Bishop walks on with her crozier and I am momentarily lost, ready to be shepherded to hopes of higher intervention. The hospital chaplains speak wearily, kindly from their deep red coats. They have shunned the pulpit though it is made of marble and inlaid with gold. I see instead a small fluorescent office— night-grey faces; impossible conversations. It's the turn of the young and nervous choir. My daughter sings with tinsel in her hair and together they take a single, shambling step towards transcendence. The vaulted organ takes the cue and I stand, hymn book lowered, before its towering coda. The queue for mince pies and wine is long. We go quickly from candlelight to cold.
Wanted After All what a gift it is to work to keep this house together. our bedroom with its fallen plaster and broken laths; your slippers gaping at me from the ruined rug. how the rectangle of winter sunlight is an unsent letter we have written to each other — and the under-bed books and the poetry — the little surveys and soundings of the night-self finding that we are, after all, aright and aligned.
Cycling to Work Wind-whipped mornings. How quickly life is what it was, and defined by it — early rides in the dark; the man on a bin, slipping, scaling a wall — I remember it because of the blood-rend in the black-night cloud; and because I had slowed to pass your dead-locked house, again.
The Fork Prodders "and then the grease of a thousand cooked breakfasts took on jellied human form" - The Bitter Springs Newly minted refugees ask how large the British coins are – can they please be swallowed safely – and any nutrients if we tried? At this impertinence the belted robes appear – the fork prodders and their vape-juice tribe. In the park the lady sneers rats with wings. But here’s the wolves with dogs, to wash their boots of shit in the suffering river. And then The Puzzler and The Numbertaker re-emerge to drag us back to Crackerjack and Manning – and ask are there far too many Asians on the box? And here I only open beers, worry about words, their loss of meaning – Misconstrue. Mistranslate. Oriole. Ascend... and look down. There's something crawling out the drain. The new batch. The horrid almost-human shapes of Viagra, semen, baby wipes and fat
This poem could help you experience again that which is passed, like the high ceiling rose in its triangle of sun, rose fragrance drifting in through her bedroom window. Or Ambros Adelwarth in his homburg hat, and the mirror which climbed back upon the wall: the blank clocks, blank signs, the shattered sun and moon – all the images and symbols, the irresolution of the lyrics to the song: a song about writing a song which the song itself is about. Or the time you cast it all aside as if the rose were one more self-sufficient symbol – only to reach again for the empty notebooks from the box behind the wardrobe.
A pile of brown apple leaves next to the trunk of an apple tree, in an allotment garden on a sunny November day
Getting a Grip Like a sea, the road comes in through the window. I suppose poetry will go, in time— but for now, the road is a sea, the peace lily a spider, the bookcase a parliament I have been consulting, in ruined slippers.
What the Tech Bro Told his Minion (after Basil Bunting) Poetry? You work for me. You don’t have hobbies. Your time is mine. This guy — what’s your name? — he works all night. He sleeps here. What do you do? Poetry in your lunchbreak? We don't do lunchbreaks. Poetry's finished. We can do it in a microsecond — that clever shit maybe three. They're making Inception 2, I told them to. Now that's art. I've been to space, Mars next — I’m building the future. What's a poet ever done? Lefties, gays. The trans agenda. I'm telling governments to lock 'em up. El Salvador — let ‘em rot. Or shoot them – quicker. Listen up, all leave's cancelled. We've got new crap to do. Blame this prick. What you write is shit. Man, your fucking face. Man, man, epic roast man. You think you're smart? I didn't even write this. Now get back to work.
Church Roofs “Your church roof keeps out water and prevents the deterioration of your building and its content.” – Church of England official website Not, note, to protect the heads and health of the prayerful. Lead, copper, split slate and nails— all earthly protections arrayed against the literal, heavenly water.
Early morning snowy scene of some bare wintry trees
North Star Defoe followed it, north to Gateshead, saying, “the empty-handed traveller will sing in the presence of the robber,” and, unharmed and penniless, set up his home on Hellgate, the medieval slum since lost to fire. He found the Tyneside air “pretty cold and piercing”— and sat down to write Robinson Crusoe. And as Crusoe found God amongst the cannibals, so Keiller's Robinson—lost in space, in England's ruins— found sanctuary of sorts under Newcastle's bridges. I too loved the sureness of the crossing spans, and spent years inside myself, suspended—shuttling back and forth alone, from skinner burn to rabbitbanks, quayside to the burnt-out staithes. I followed nothing. I didn't find God, write novels, or hermit myself in philosophical knots. I only remained penniless and safe, and as much at home as the calling kittiwakes from the Tyne Bridge towers—who paint the streets all summer, then suddenly leave—for the north, and the sea.
The Night Shed She and I a clock's distance apart, hours of minutes passing like eights. The flash and glow of the train past the garden; our grey crater of asters. And the night shed, and the morning web still riven together: all eight days of seven never waking to touch.
I dreamed of the horse and you again and we were riding up the valley on our bicycles, stopping, skidding on the gravel— you almost ran to its chestnut glow. You—in your worn-out shorts and frayed top, boots untied, long hair filtering the sun— reaching for its glossy flank, its simple face, black mane. And you so poised and pleased as it moved gently, in the heat, under your hand. And at the top—this part, I think, was real— we lay by the corrugated barn and watched the valley spread— the red-brick terraces, blank white warehouses— and heard the clangour of the distant scrapyard. And in that moment, it became the time we got lost in a narrow field with a nervous stamping horse, our bikes a muddy hindrance, time running out on a frozen afternoon. We had gone so far that day but still I was afraid to climb the fence. You only laughed and said nothing: Then crouched—hands cupped, and braced.
The Burn Closes Another silent afternoon, stunned in the supermarket by the this-ness of the shampoo bottles on the shelves, and of the workers who stocked them— bawling happy insults at each other across the stock room floor. So I took the long way home through the burn closes: to the plateau with the little ruined church, the grounds herb-rich and rabbit-bit; the rich greens of the gorse, the grass, the trees blending with the sky— the sky glaucous, and carnation. And through the pink, rusting 70s fence to the medieval Holy Cross— a ruin by 1800 — and St Peter's, down the bank, not built for another seven years. And in that church-less gap, all the parish souls, married, with or without offspring, in a pen-stroke deemed on the instant illegitimate— their ties illegal, the registers annulled: A portcullis authority over small, quiet lives.
Language The guinea pig can not converse with the rat, nor the pig with the fox, the worm with the camel. But there is the story of the ape who spoke with the sky, with the river and the sea, with the squid and the moth, with the absence of light in the night-time pines. Finding itself nonetheless alone, it spoke in never-ending circles— finally, and only, with itself.
Arundo donax Unsuccessful meditation; no green and yellow to earth the wires. In this dreadful quiet the doors won't open— try instead the free-blown fires: The sprung Arundo donax— animal squeal and ominous rumble, war-born spiritual, spittle and click. It's a rattling spell to raise it. Shaking reeds in a fizzy jungle— summer morning, city park. Grasses feed us twice: The stick that strikes the silent chimes springs locks, lets jumbling words through— maddeningly perfect, an ever-blowing riff— tall rushes in a meadow. The sweep of sounds won't solve you, but could—like this enjambment— have you freed, and stepping through— across the opened door jamb.
Help Me Out Here No success in meditation; is it green or yellow to earth the wires? In dreadful quiet the door won't open— try instead the free-blown rush. The sprung Arundo donax— animal squeal and ominous rumble, war-torn spiritual, spittle and click. It's a spell to call it— shaking reeds in a fizzy jungle; summer morning city park. So grasses feed us twice: the stick that strikes the silent chimes springs locks, lets jumbling words through— maddeningly perfect, an ever-blowing riff: tall grasses in a meadow. The sweep of sounds won't solve you, but could, like this enjambment, have you freed, and stepping through across the opened door jamb.
Help Me Out Here No success in meditation; is it green or yellow to earth the wires? In dreadful quiet, the door won't open— try instead the free-blown rush. The sprung Arundo donax— animal squeal and ominous rumble— war-torn spiritual, spittle and click. It's a spell to call it— shaking reeds in a fizzy jungle: summer morning city park. So grasses feed us twice. The stick that strikes the silent chimes springs locks, lets jumbling words through— maddeningly perfect, an ever-blowing riff: tall grasses in a meadow. The sweep of sounds won't solve you but could, like this enjambment, see you stepping out across the door jamb.
Geography Are there too many places? And here we are, struggling to get the washing dry. Well, moving from one place to another, I see that it is not raining there— and although the sky is grey, the cherry leaves are golden. On bikes, the boys pass a spliff. The smell is agricultural, the way muck- spreading invades passing cars. Back home, solidarity is languid— though there is the company of bricks; of damp indoor air.
The Wind-lover I’m balanced on a bicycle, motionless, halfway up the hill in the mountain wind, face full of oxygen I can’t breathe in— the slap, slump, and wallop increasing with every upward inch. Below, the storm is rolling its palms across the scrubland. Sycamores are stripped, and willows cracked open. Huge, astonished lime trees lean east. The lake shivers, lifts, resettles, edges for the exit. A greenhouse catapults a fence. Even the daws are not so cocksure now. The gulls have gone to ground, or decamped to the river and its ghosted granary towers. The storm has blown us back in time. It’s autumn, and the ships will not be sailing. They roll, maddened, in the docks, pouring their North Sea spill over the white-washing-line terraces, sending the black and white kids in wellies running for safety up the valley… Night. The wind begins to walk away. There’s the sound of someone opening and closing a door, softly, repeatedly, dementedly, again and again— My son, the wind-lover, windows open— and unbelievably asleep.
Dudley I walked the flags of Dudley. Space, rain and rattling crows. The train flashed over the viaduct; The pubs were closed.
Wildflowers and Light The gentle movement of bodies in water— boiling eggs and pebbles. The derangement of the woodcock, its clatter and panic... The year is leaving. I coppice the wood I don’t own for wildflowers and light.
Graphic from the Guardian showing the area I live in as one of the most deprived in the country, and showing it's got worse since 2019
Oceans In reddened light I rake the grass. Broken forms recast into broken forms— Uncrossable oceans sealed with the O-ring of blood on every finger. Their design. Fathers, mothers weeping in sun-slanted slums. The blood that emerged from the body of colour had no colour. It was reported that way. And I have raked the land to nothing: they disappear citizens, don’t they.
Deer Lake I've been waiting to find my way back. I can not be the same person who watched the pine and oakwood age. Getting here I passed through blackthorn like mist. I do not mean I became the mist. In the café the girl is slowly sweeping the floor. The way back will be the test of it: the blackthorn, the red mass of haws - and the rain, its black towers over the lake.
A picnic table in an allotment garden covered in red and green apples and pears
An allotment garden on a chilly October afternoon. It's looking a bit rough round the edges but still lush and colourful. A gravel and brick path leads to a polytunnel. Red apples hang from a tree to the left and the grass is dotted with more.
Howard and Hilda from Ever Decreasing Circles, in matching jumpers