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arise!
‘they being dead yet speaketh’
so history is done,
the shafts capped,
the breathless heaps
erased or made-over:
no monument
save memory,
save anecdote
& frail romance,
no rusted remnant,
no totem mark,
only nature to sing
their hymn.
three score years & ten
of spoil beneath our feet,
our antecedents
rendered mute & obsolete.
history is done
the cynics proclaim,
they do not hear it
nagging in our veins,
they do not hear
the bitter wind
hiss its litany
of familiar names.
they do not hear
the whispered yakka
echo in the helix
of our complex genes.
they do not hear
the roll-call
of redundant lives,
of prospects slain
at altars of profit
& heinous spite.
history is done
the sages refrain,
they do not hear it
niggling in our veins.
they do not hear
the lists of seams
spun like lyric
in dense pitmatic:
ballarat, harvey,
busty & main,
bensham, brockwell,
tilley & dean,
hutton, maudlin
& the yard,
the cold black logic
of the thin five quarter.
they do not hear
the voice of rocks,
of cold geology
incanted like spells:
blue seggar & shale,
flag & whin,
mudstone, metal,
spar & post,
each stratum
still murmuring
its melody
of toil.
& so, we march
this bastille day
to dunhelm’s slopes,
to durham town,
squat citadel
of cuthbert’s bones,
of snaking wear
& privileged gown,
its toad-back cobbles
applauding each footfall.
& so we march
on durham town,
reclaim the detail
of our pasts,
to give it voice,
to farm its hope,
to let it seep
into our futures.
our congregation
grows its ranks;
spilling from each
compass point,
trickling through
the hands of time,
from redhills’ redbrick
parliament of hope,
with promise seeping
from its chambers,
from village
& from dale,
from coast
& moor,
our unity
is strength.
proud confluence
of grief & hope,
of youth & age,
of then & now.
some to revel,
some to mourn,
made maudlin
by the tenor horn,
each breathy sweep
of weeping notes
casts ferric nuggets
in our throats.
some to rage,
& some to sigh
beneath a slump
of july sky.
history is done,
he sceptic claims,
he does not hear it
thunder through our veins.
each fathom sunk,
each bounty won,
each dim-lit shift,
each hollow profit,
each shattered bone,
each fall of stone,
each bleak ignition’s
scorched cadavers,
each in-rush, each crush,
each blue lipped lesion,
each shallow lung
left blackened or anoxic,
each klaxon calling
grief to bank,
each chiselled obelisk
raised in memory,
each sorry litany
of whispered names:
the mason’s chisel
rendered blunt,
carving out
each ream of names,
history is done,
the tyrants impart,
they do not hear it
thumping in our hearts.
in clara vale,
the earth still boils,
cooked by layers
of smouldering spoil,
a beacon burning
underground,
a male-voice choir
of spectral sound,
belching sulphurous
ghosts of steam,
summoning the dead
from sheol’s dreams.
a rallying call
through time & space,
to gather near
the market place.
worker, precariat,
& stoic poor,
from ferryhill
to ushaw moor,
a rallying call
of stubborn hope,
fanning out
like hockled rope.
its message slicing
through the dark,
from peterlee
& pity me,
to westoe, wearmouth
& bear park,
from spenny, shildon & tow law
to pelton, penshaw & stanley crook.
it calls out greed & wanton spite,
it calls the capitalists to book.
its swarm of words
carried on the breeze,
down the ghosted streets
of the category d’s.
& so we march,
to dunhelm’s slopes,
our confluence
of loss & hope.
& breaching the walls
of fragile time,
breaking the bond
of heaven’s grip,
a hobnailed legion
of stubborn ghosts,
ascended from
each idle shaft
or lonely grave,
to march behind
a black draped banner.
wide eyed & boisterous,
the soot-faced lads
of sometimewhen,
amassing like spartans
by the county hotel,
to swell our ranks,
to grow our voice.
history is done,
our keepers refrain,
they do not hear it
nagging in our veins.
& so we march,
to durham town.
for the many
not the few.
to build jerusalem anew.
for need not greed,
to fill the racecourse
field with dreams,
to let the mourning
stars look down
upon this confluence
of hope & faith,
of youth & age,
of then & now.
a union forged
in bastille sun,
each slow step forward
growing our momentum.
the rhythm of
half a million feet
marching through
these cobbled streets
beseech us
to unlearn defeat
& come the day,
our hope replete,
our children will bear witness
to a victory complete.
victory for the many
& not the few,
blake’s jerusalem
built anew.
history is done,
the cynics bark,
they do not hear it
singing through the dark,
they do not feel
our losses ache,
the past lives on,
our future still to make.
& so we march
on durham town,
to tear oppression’s
standards down,
to wipe away
each subjugated frown.
& so we march
on dunhelm’s slopes,
proud confluence
of unity & hope.
& so we march.
& so we march.
& so we march.
& so we march.
Paul Summers was born in Blyth, Northumberland, in 1967. He has recently returned to his native North East England after a five-year stint living tropical Central Queensland. His poems have appeared widely in print since the late Eighties and he has performed all over the world. He was founding co-editor of the ‘leftfield’ British magazines Billy Liar and Liar Republic and a co-director of Liar Inc Ltd, responsible for facilitating countless creative community and educational projects across the North of England and beyond. He has also written for TV, film, radio and theatre and has collaborated many times with other artists and musicians on mixed-media projects and public art. bibliography: arise! (Culture Matters, 2018); the boy who stole the curate’s egg (Black Light Engine Room, 2017); straya (Smokestack Books, 2017); primitive cartography (Walleah Press, Hobart, 2013. Smokestack Books, UK, 2014); union, new & selected poems (Smokestack Books, UK, 2011); The Dreams Days Break Portfolio (with photographer David Gray, 78 Degrees & Clear, 2010); Three Men on the Metro (with WN Herbert & Andy Croft, Five Leaves, 2009); big bella’s dirty cafe (Dogeater Books, 2006); cunawabi (with photographer David Gray, Cunawabi Publishing, London, 2003); The Rat’s Mirror (Lapwing Press, 1999); The Last Bus (Iron Press, 1998); Beer & Skittles (Echo Room Press, 1997); Vermeer’s Dark Parlour (Echo Room Press, 1996); 140195 (Blue Cowboys/Echo Room Press, 1995).
