Pointless Connections

Disused Quarry 1956

It was when the tadpoles 

got too old for the sweet-jar 

that I went to the quarry,

performed the necessary ceremony,

and first felt paternal. 

The water rippled baptismally, 

as they submerged,

shaking off tails 

in convoys of adulthood.

Approving, 

the sun patted my head,

as I turned, 

on reconnaissance,

leading the way up the cliff.

And there 

was the crane! 

Abandoned,

gun-barrel drooping,

its last dog-fight

acted out on a boy’s battle-field. 

The levers - 

what a sorry crew they made,

the way Monty’s men 

had to leave them

limb-stiff 

to the heat and flies:

the engine still smelled of heavy action,

dripped imagined suffering, retribution ….

Suddenly, 

the Sunday-school sensation was there, 

squatting in the reeds of my mind,

its frog-eyed surveillance, 

at tongue’s length,

like a sniper 

ready to pick me off 

if I didn’t keep low,

in hand-to-hand retreat.

.

Pointless 2016

If smooth Alexander asked her, in his well-oiled way,    
how she'd spend the money, if she won,      
she'd say New York, New York. 
Everyone did, didn't they?                  
She'd seen the men posing on the beam,             
dreamt of doing the Empire State Building,        
another must-have holiday                           
to pack away with all the others,                      
plus a time-cheating selfie taken                  
at the base of that huge erection,                   
its Keuper sandstone cladding                   
quarried in the Wirral, England.

Post-war the formerly Roman                  
now disused White Freestone Quarry           
had a don't-go-near pond at the bottom                   
where, as a small boy, I emptied                      
my adolescent tadpoles                     
out of a fifties sweet jar                     
and watched them wriggle away                
to enjoy being frogs in my poem                 
half a century later                                                                          
before the quarry was filled in,                  
archiving privileged knowledge           
under excavated rubble                                   
from the second Mersey tunnel.    

Back from New York,                      
she'd show off her selfie                  
and enhance her life by assuming her friends                
would think she was the most important item                
in the photo, it never occurring to her                  
that her friends might just notice the cladding               
behind her, though, at the same time,                                                                
or any other time, not realising,                 
like millions of New Yorkers and millions of visitors        
since the building of that building,              
that they would be missing out              
on each stone's silly story of privileged knowledge.            
But she'd have to win Pointless first.            

                        ...

Author's Note

Alexander is the host of a general knowledge quiz program on BBC Television called "Pointless."

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

I really enjoyed this Gerald. Funnily enough I have references to Alexander and pointless and rocks holding ancient secrets in two of my stories (conversation no 2557 and A muckle wind). I'm very poor at interpreting very abstract poetry and am left feeling a bit frustrated but yours is written in language that has many well observed and beautiful images. Everyone will have seemingly insignificant places or objects that will have great significance for them but no others.
I think I should work a bit harder on my reading of poetry as I feel I am missing out on much.
I'll come back to read more of your writing for sure.
I have spent some time reworking my own story and thanks again for your suggestions. It was my intention that would be set in a close parallel world and the language was meant to reflect that. I've used italics to delineate dream and waking and so on.
Thanks again,
Alan

[Gerald Parker]

Thanks, Alan. Yes, re. abstract language in poetry - it's always been my aim to use as little of it as possible and rely on the scene setting and imagery to convey the message. This 'pointless' poem doesn't quite live up to that aim but I'm pleased you picked out what I was aiming to say, pointless though it is.
Cheers, Gerald