St. George's Tower

I wrote the following poems in October 2012 as Vauxhall Tower (also known as St. George's Tower) rose to its current height of 50 storeys making it Britain's tallest residential building. I took the photos (below) on the day of the fatal accident Wednesday January 16 a few hours after a helicopter struck a crane on the tower, killing the pilot and a pedestrian.
The Vauxhall Society, for whom the poems were originally written, has safety concerns about this tower and similar ones planned for Vauxhall.

St. George's Tower

St George's Tower

It taunts the day and haunts the night
This tyrannising tube of height
It shouts all lower structures down
Enslaves the Eye for miles around

It straddles Vauxhall’s riverside
A beast midstream but not high tide
It dominates, obliterates
Stifles minds and suffocates

Against the seagulls’ mournful cries
Insidious and climbing high
St George’s Tower alters lives
Puncturing Vauxhall’s skies

Its vast concentric core is first
As each new level upwards thrusts
Emptiness is pierced by man
A crane assists this massive plan

Near London’s first and buried bridge
This tower looks down on MI6
Imposes on the ancient shore
A monstrous height of 50 floors

Rupturing all serenity
Where lower roofs once reigned supreme
No low profile on the Thames
At this soft bend where nature blends
 

where wildfowl and the salty flows
Of air and currents cleanse the soul
St George’s Tower standing tall
Ending what was old Vauxhall

Written October 2012

By Sally Gethin



 

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Elegy to old Vauxhall

It is dying, slowly sadly
As a beast that’s euthanased
This tidal stretch of river
Is going to its grave

Ebbing and subsiding
Its heart imploding quick
As a creature ceasing fighting
Submitting to the rich

The slow arc of a seagull
The cormorants that dive
The heron paused in feeding
Nature stalled, subsides

It is ebbing, it is slowing
All the freedom in its sights
the clouds are dark cascading
On Vauxhall’s lonely plight

The low unpressured skyline
That lets the eye roam free
The easy sweep of London
As it bends towards the sea

It is dying and declining
As developers clog its heart
Wiping Vauxhall’s history
In a strangled fake false art

It is dying it is sighing
As the first tall building climbs
Blanking out the soft twilight
With brittle glaring lights

The loneliness of Vauxhall
Its solitary hues
This quiet stretch of river
The colour and its mood

Is dying and capsizing
No saviour at its gate
No-one to defend it
As the land is churned in spades

A crass manhattan sprints to life
Colossal choking height
A tyranny to hug the sky
Bestriding day and night

This last wide stretch of river
With Vauxhall at its crux
Surrenders all its quiet hope
As construction starts to thrust

The first to dominate the view
Excrescence in steel form
A protuberance above the Thames
Shows the finger in Vauxhall

And more to come, upon the shore
Like sharpened knives upturned
Twin towers to assault the mind
Their fingers at our throat

It is dying it is ebbing
Like a saddened slumbering beast
Euthanased and crushed beneath
Vauxhall’s tidal soul

Sally Gethin, October 2012

Janus

Janus, god of all that's new
Of hope, of joy, an early bloom
A new beginning, a beckoning dawn
While Jana, moon, its ending mourns

Janus, Jana look both ways
Light and shadow borne of 'dies' (days)
President of birth and death
A newborn's breath, and, fading health

Janus opens, closes fast
Each season, cycle, present, past
He sees us steal through winter's frost
to knock upon his door and ask

if we might enter his domain
and bask in health and wealth again

and if he grants us favours rich
his janitor will drop his stick,
He'll draw the bolt and let us in
with 'SALVE! Noble citizen!'

Once inside, the god decides
if we have earned the right to dine
at his rich home, within his walls
where he looks on inside his door

The two-faced god, of dual core
can give or take, in peace and war,
As you open, so he yields
to prospects bright and luscious fields

of dreams and vistas, bold and new
glimpsed by all, won by few,
Yet as he opens wide our hearts
so he closes minds grown dark,

Those whose lives are vainly spent
in idle boasts and goals unmet
will soon be faced with Janus' scorn
a trick played out by his false dawn

Janus knows both day and night,
a double-sided coin so bright,
the sun upon a darkened door,
the moon bestrides our twilight hour,

For while we travel in our quest
to open up our treasure chest,
we should remember we are guests
at Janus' house, at his behest.

copyright Sally Gethin, composed January 2006

From the Altitude Skybar in Millbank Tower

From Altitude the city naps

Stilled by autumn's honeyed heat

One side soaked in gauzy haze

The other stands in austere grace

No beings punctuate the scene

Simply architectural feats

Eye glazed over, Shard is stalled

An avenue of fluid form

Breaks the stone and concrete norm

Vessels passing back and forth

Straddling girth from south to north

Bridges yield their toytown cars

Turquoise, black, the taxis star

Obeying all their rules and paths

Lambeth Bridge sees ambulances

Circle right in roundabout dances

Further south the toytown trains

of red and blue smooth past each way

...the perfect pasture of this isle

Is London's ordered domicile

Richard Martin memorial

Richard Martin memorial, a set on Flickr.

Held 21st September 2011 to mark the first anniversary of the death of Richard Martin, artpop.

Although I’m a writer by profession, finding the words to describe Richard Martin (14/2/54 – 21/9/10) and the impact of his death on all his friends, is still so hard.

When the first anniversary of his death came round last week, I struggled to find expression and it came out in the form of organising a tribute event for him exactly a year to the day he died. It turned out to be a very sombre almost funereal occasion held late afternoon on the banks of the river at Millbank.

Over 20 of Richard’s stalwart friends (aka artpops) turned up. It was changeable weather but by and large mild and sunny interspersed by little shadows of clouds, possibly mirroring his own life.

I wrote and read aloud a eulogy and a poem I had written soon after his death. This was followed by several more eulogies, from Keith Gilleran, Ellen, and John Churchill among others.  Joe, one of Richard’s closest friends, delivered a poignant reading of Philip Larkin’s Aubade. It seemed to me the words floated out above our heads, over the river and into the skies above. A few people were moved to tears as more and more of us volunteered our own personal recollections of Richard’s extraordinary generosity – and his wonderful warmth and spontaneity, not to mention his intellectual prowess.

One artpop who brought her little boy in a pushchair, described how devastated she was when she learnt of his death. At the time she had given birth to her little boy Hugo, whom Richard described as a ‘future artpop’. Sadly he never met the little artpop as there was no time before he died.

Joe recounted the story of how he got to know Richard at John Calder’s Bookshop and how it took time to become acquainted with Richard’s tastes in art and literature. He explained how Richard’s artpop list came into being and how the artpop group emerged like a butterfly onto the private view art scene.

Finally, when everyone who wanted to say their bit had done so, we held a minute's silence. Then we all walked onto Vauxhall Bridge at 5pm and tossed a rose each into the river as a gesture to this unassuming figure who had influenced each of our lives.

(I brought 20 roses to the memorial and all but one were taken by the artpops to throw in the river. Finally – one tired looking last rose remained unclaimed. This rose was thrown by the mother of the youngest and ‘future artpop’ –  Hugo, barely a year old, on behalf of her son who watched it slip from his mother’s grasp through the railings and sail away on the opaque waters below.)

Richard Howe kindly stepped in to take photos, shown above. I recommend viewing them as a slideshow on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54341846@N07/sets/72157627757022950/

And Richard’s own photos are still online for viewing at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artpops/

His old blog is still online and captures his wonderful zest for all things artistic and life itself: http://artpopsartpops.blogspot.com/

Aubade (Philip Larkin, written 1977)

For a review of Aubade, go to: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/anwilson/3554550/Philip-Larkins-almost-perfect-poem.html

STRANGER ON A TRAIN (Sally Gethin, 2010)

On and on my journey rolled
Well into the night
Jostling all my hopes inside
Speeding to the light

The tracks then buckled
Threw me back
But never did it crash
Every fearful unseen threat
Gone in just a flash

Hurtling hard from side to side
The train then eased and slowed
A stranger stepped onto my train
And made his presence known

He talked to me of treasures vast
Of things that he had seen
This unassuming traveller
Had stepped into my dream.

And as the journey gathered pace
And threatened to wreak havoc
He never left me on my own
Inside the battered carriage

And as we journeyed on in haste
He pointed out the views
Of artists, poets, those heroic
A panoply of scenes

And soon my life was filled with fun
An abundance of the riches
He saw the plenitude and
shared its joyful secrets

I changed from grey to vibrant hue
My pallor now infused
With all the colour all around
That kept him so enthused

But sadly as I turned my gaze
He stepped off all too soon
And yet his final words were strong
For me to carry on alone

And now he’s gone, the carriage bare
The journey’s not the same
I gaze out of the windows
but the views are all in vain

But on my train goes anyway
It chugs on in the dusk
I wish I could go back again

But onward bound I must

There’s times in life when we all need
A stranger on a train
The one with whom you share your soul
Then vanishes, unseen.

Dog day birthday

And so, as dog days end

I came to be

Born in waning summer

And days of dying bees

A vapid arid desert

Where no-one can be seen

When itinerant tourists

Linger like lost leaves

The diaries are blank

Friends have gone away

Cities hold their breath

The crowds have had their day

A cause for celebration

Is always out of reach

Now I know that dog days end
At end of summer's lease

Suki

Soft black curtains

of velvety fur

Ears made of satin

Remind me of her

Tired of the stroking

And tickly touch

She’d toss her head sideways

To stop all the fuss

Her head was quite flat

As in Labrador breeds

But her build was too squat

For a real pedigree

Her eyes were so feeling

Brown pools of truth

Her paw would come nagging

For treats or a walk

Sometimes I see her

Again in my dreams

Old but still living

To guide me it seems

My heart melts once more

To see her again

To play and to cuddle

My dog-gone dead friend

The House of Waiting

In the House of Waiting

The clock ceases ticking

The heart starts quickening

The postman never calls

There is no-one at the door

The bags are always packed

Too heavy to be dragged

The hour is never nigh

When happiness arrives

There is never enough time

To satisfy the mind

At night the clocks go slow

Big Ben echoes

Grief fills the void

Tears for those who died

Sorrow, sorrow stains the hour

For losses borne in sweetest flower

Hopes, regrets collide like stars

Suspended, dropping from afar

All to do is sit and wait

The House taps out its measured fate