Hail, English Summer

[Hawkman]

Even in sunshine,
a flimsy scaffold tower
does not inspire confidence.
When it’s windy, you can feel it lurch,
sickeningly swaying with every gust,
your balance fighting instability for purchase,
while curling toes probe soles
as if to grip the platform boards.
The body, between head and foot,
oscillates like a plucked base string.

The view is not encouraging.
From your insecure vantage point
you see, beyond the nearby trees,
dangling beneath a cruelly bruised sky,
the curtain-falls advance across the countryside
to strafe fields
and just know you’re in their sights.
You can hear the rumble of heavenly guns,
see their muzzle-flashes lance the ground.

You can’t get down; you have a job to do.
The action you record, for posterity and profit,
doesn’t stop,
at least not yet.
Your only option is to raise your hood
and hope,
as the first few drops
announce themselves with splats.

What you thought was heavy rain
starts bouncing, and the resonance
of impact changes pitch;
a fatter, sharper, harder sound,
and even through the hood
your ears feel the sting that planets know
when asteroids attack.

Above the roar, the air is pierced with cries
when unprotected flesh endures a hit.
Umbrellas sprout
only to resonate like drum skins
and chairs are overturned
as rushing crowds take shelter from assault.

Your turn now.

Back on terra not-so firma,
you wait,
cowering in what cover
the scaffolding provides,
head banging on bracing struts,
swearing as you paddle,
while water seeps through leaky shoes
and cold wet cloth adheres to chilling skin.

The ground’s awash,
carpeted by muddy marbles,
congregating,
caught in clumps
where fabric sags in seats
and slackened awnings.

August’s children, scooping handfuls,
scream and shout with twisted joy,
and fling them back towards the sky,
but gravity is graver.

When heaven’s wrath subsides,
replaced by sulking drizzle,
you emerge and wait until residual lakes
have drained.
You smoke a soggy cigarette,
reflect,
and then remember—

the skylight on the caravan is open...

[firefangled]

Hawk,

I enjoyed the descriptiveness of this piece, the approaching storm as an advancing army of some kind.

The narrator seemed to be a scorekeeper or judge over looking an event, or maybe I am caught up in the Olympics,

My memory of scaffolding is from helping my father install stained glass in churches, so I didn't get the paddling, especially since it sounded as though N was taking the scaffolding with him/her.

You used sound very effectively in this: cruelly bruised sky; rumble of heavenly guns; Umbrellas sprout/only to resonate like drum skins; a fatter, sharper, harder sound.

Well done as most of your poems are. I am curious about the profession of N, if you could say.

[ampoule]

I like this so much. For a bit, I thought of someone perched on a high dive. I suppose I am caught up in the Olympics as well.

[Hawkman]

Hi ff and amp!

Well, you're not far off. ;) The narrator is a cameraman filming a dirt-track motor racing event in the middle of a Yorkshire field and providing a video feed to race control. Perhaps the reference to strafing was prompted by the overflight of a Spitfire at about 200 feet the day before the storm. Certainly close enough to feel the beat of the engine in the chest. Fortunately, it didn't open fire.

The narrator was considerably put out when he was pelted with 15mm hailstones though. Not a common occurrance in his neck of the woods, although he understands that Golf ball sized hail is common in the states. ;) He wasn't crazy about standing on a metal scaffold tower when lightning strikes were spearing the earth around him either!

As for the poet, whilst having been completely indifferent to the relentless hype prior to the Olympics, he confessess that he too has been rather hooked by the event itself. Great fun.

Thank you both for reading and enjoying.

Live and be well - H

[aliengirl]

Hey Hawk, It's nice to be back here after a long gap and find your entertaining poem. Like others, I also kept thinking about Olympics while reading. I like the playful tone of the poem though it might not have been a very funny experience for the narrator. The way you manipulate words to describe different sounds is inspiring. But you reserved the best for the last... I was like...:smilielol5::lol:

[Hawkman]

Hi Ripley,

One is always pleased to entertain ;) Glad you found so much to enjoy in this one and got such a laugh out of the last line. Schadenfreude - a powerful thing! :D

Live long and prosper - H

[Jeos]

How come that you can say so much about english summer ?!?! if at least you were writing about...portuguese summer...? Just joking eh...
However for me your text belongs more to the domain of beautiful prose.
but this is subjective of course like always...

[Hawkman]

Hi Jeos, well I can't speak for a Portuguese summer as I've never experienced one. I'll leave this to the more widley travelled - or the Portuguese :D

Sorry it didn't quite float your boat as a poem, but thanks for reading and taking the time to let me know you had. :)

Via con Dios - H

[Jerrybaldy]

Dirt track motor racing event? How are we supposed to draw that conclusion? It doesn't matter though as it was the most vivid account of being caught in a hail storm. 'carpeted by muddy marbles' and many other lines highly evocative and immensely recognisable and enjoyable. One of my favourite postings of yours.

[Hawkman]

Thanks JB. As you observed, the nature of the event isn't really relevent to the poem, which is about being caught in a thundery hail storm. Glad you enjoyed it.

Live and be well - H

[Jack of Hearts]

This reader also picked 'muddy marbles' as a winner. Also 'August's children.' Has the Hawk returned to roost? There are descriptors such as 'insecure vantage point' and 'cruelly bruised' and of course a job to do... does this in any way reflect that present state of the average Englishmen's moral fiber? Erm, fibre?

Close your eyes and think of England!

Welcome back, Hawk!






J

[Hawkman]

Hi Jack, sorry, didn't mean to overlook you. Not so much returned to roost, more circling looking for prey - lol. Glad you found something to enjoy within the piece. As for LMF not sure how a cruelly bruised sky gets you there lol. LMF would only be an issue if an Englishman failed to ascend to the vantage point from fear of its insecurity...

I don't need to close my eyes to think of england neither do I need a blindfold when confronted by a firing squad. I'd rather see it coming.

Live and be well - H

[AuntShecky]

"Hard Rain Falling," eh?-- just like the song.

The imagery in this one is highly apt. It contains echoes (both figuratively and actually) of the really hard "rain" that fell upon England in the penultimate decade of the last half of the twentieth century; I bet it was intentional.

Also deliberate methinks is the chatty, colloquial tone similiar to the ordinary speech of a workingman. For this reason, maybe we could give a pass to the occasional "prosy" effect, but this can be mollified by refining the line breaks.

My only real objection to its style is the use of the second person (despite the fact that it's often employed in the vernacular.) The verse is strongest when it sticks to the third person POV.

PS--
In my neck o' the woods there's a popular adage that our region has 4 seasons: Almost Winter,
Winter, Still Winter, and Construction.

[Hawkman]

Hi Auntie,

I guess that Spitfire's got a lot to answer for ;) I was a bit confused by your reference to 'Hard Rain' in the 1990's though :D I guess I should have written it in 1st person really, but I couldn't face subjecting folk to all those 'I's.

I like your adage. Over here we seem not to have had a proper winter or summer, merely varying degrees of rain. It's raining again now. I guess ours would be:
"Looks like rain, Yup, it's raining, Pissing down and Intervals."

Live long and prosper - H