Birmingham, damp, soaking wet
And I feel the
Rain
Teem and rinsing at
My every pore
But welcoming me back with open arms
In greeting to a prodigal son
As I leave the bright modern station
Of New Street.
The autumn darkness shields me
Like an roughly made cloak and I remain invisible
To all who once played like I
In the Costermonger’s basement. The sound of an air guitar
Straining at the leash as the crash of a new beat
Hit our 14 year old minds.
The rain hurries through life,
To meet its individual end and collect and run through drains
That live below the beast.
A city that has changed so much from the days of
Rummaging
Through boxes of 45 R.P.M.
Covered in brown paper making the excitement last
Of what your pound may have got you.
The market no longer the playground of youth,
Of hearing a song that would take your life in a new direction;
Of the shouts of trade.
The rain collects in my trilby as I make my way
Through
The
Empty
Space
In which the Slug and Lettuce once stood.
Under the shelter of memory I recall the times that I had sat
In the bar watching a game,
Any game,
That took my fancy but with a smile
At the thought of the Goats goals when I couldn’t make it
To Maine Road.
The rain that had collected on the fringe of my trilby sloshed forward and poured
Over the pavement, cascading at first but then
Dribbling endlessly
As if in mock salute to the thought
Of midfield Generals and to Adam
The fastest kid in our year and a hero to all.
The dark nights of November in a city I call
My original home but which I share now with Bicester
America, Cornwall, Canada and Liverpool.
The passion of youth, of pride in a family history
Of having grown up in the city that produced my
Ancestors.
Under the Bull Ring, under the Rotunda,
The image engrained in my child mind
Of what could have happened in ’74
If my dad had gone to town.
I make way across to the market
The rain is cold, Birmingham cold
No place ever felt as wet. The shiver though is not
The chill of the November evening adding to the dying days
Of the year, it is memory,
Of history as I pause for a moment and say a word to my great
Grandfather as hands are clasped together.
An exploding B.S.A.
What a way
To lose your life.
The howls of 70 years, howling, death
The loses on both sides captured in a memory of him
As they pulled him from the wreckage
Only to be identified by his wedding
Ring.
The hands clasped are not my own but I thank for small mercies
None the less.
The bus never seems to want to come,
The rain now persistent, the sky dark dingy,
Despairing…
But a smile creeps over my face
As I think of stolen kisses by bus stops
Of conversations of football stickers
Of trading cards, mars bars, my father’s first car
Always in the Birmingham rain.
I have my home
In
Liverpool, I have my past in the alleyways, in the streets of Birmingham
I have the thought of football boots being cleaned
In cold, mind crippling frozen water
That my dad would break the ice to.
Of cigarette stains that permeated the ceiling of all the houses
In the street as they smoked to relieve the 70s.
The rain cleanses the skin,
The cold shower is enough to have
People
Scurrying home
Out of the dark November night.
Ian D. Hall 2013