Mr Pezzak of Mousehole makes small talk in a chance meeting of Bards up t’Trurra!
‘Ah! ‘Tis a legal crime! Brazen theft!’
Old Pezzak grips my arm. ‘Council houses
In a village silenced by profiteers
Changing hands for half a million!’
‘Places built by Granfer & Son
To get more kids past the age of one!
And the Christmas lights, up all year!’
‘Some busy-body took on to clear
A century’s cobwebs, to interfere
And change the peace of the Lifeboat
Room, where solemn crews
Peer out through dust from eternity –
Naw need! Naw need ‘t all, but peace,
‘Ee’s different if ‘ee’s bought with money –
Specially money nawb’dy sees,
Money on wires in lieu of fees,
And council houses empty stood
And trees, wands in the easterlies,
Swayed like fools in a stadium wood
That speak no sighs nor twilight lullabies
When lovers stroll between their rings –
Only a lark, for old time’s sake,
Hangs from a cloud over heather’s brake
And sings – sings of revival, of rescue,
Of witness and thanksgiving –
Sings in the slipstream of storms
‘For those in peril…’, Abide with Me’
And ‘Cym Rhonda’, until, udders dry,
The milkin’ ‘erds groan lower bass
To root the choir in this people’s place!’
‘A legal crime, I say! The theft of decency,
A tyranny of paint – quaint names
Slated and silvered by each front door,
Messages, declarations of possession,
The crunch of invading espadrilles
Along odourless harbour walls – and curses
Of ghosts, of gansey’d hosts, lugger crews
Of cousins and uncles, of Penders
And Tregenzas, of Pentreaths, all away,
Keigwin, Carvosso, Trewavas, old Dolly,
Madron, Brockman, Blewett, Greenhaugh,
Smith, Torrie, Wallis – all away
To nurse a vacuum in metro hearts,
To speak in drawls and twangs
Of material things, of gardens needing rain…
But never, never the exile’s pain –
Never village parted for lack of a house
And love left to curl and trickle
Through a grille of an un-cleared drain –
Who’s left now to share in the seine
When mackerel and hunger, mark my words,
Cause the fleet to fill brown sails,
With dawn on its heels and lanyard prayers
In eager throats from the harbour rails?
Places built by Granfer & Son
To get more kids past the age of one!
And the Christmas lights, up all year!
And ‘Cym Rhonda’, until, udders dry,
The milkin’ ‘erds groan lower bass
To root the choir in this people’s place!
But, hope, Boy! Hope on the ailing tongue,
The travellin’ quack’s elixir,
Easter drunk for resurrection, Kingdom come!
‘Twill all come round, Boy! Never fear!’
Vyager gans Geryow (Bert Biscoe) lives in Truro. He is a poet and songwriter whose work draws on his interest in history, politics, social justice and language. He served as an elected member of Cornwall Council for about 30 years, and as a member of the late Carrick district council. The Ward was formerly called ‘Moresk’ – an unbroken link from civic administration to the hurried escape of Tristan and Iseult from the vengeful wrath of King Mark – writing a poem a day, Bert tries to invest Cornish values into the demands of modern life. His work is fun, and best read aloud – which he does whenever the opportunity arises, especially with fellow Cornish poet, Pol Hodge. ‘Living in Trurra’ he says. ‘Means that there is a constancy of running water beneath your feet – there are two clocks which ring the hours dissonantly and out of step – a good environment for poems to flourish in the cracks and shadows. Nowadays, the mullet listen attentively in the lee of the Old Bridge’.
