Let's Build A City

Let's Build A City © Michael Blackburn, 2007 ISBN 1 874778 21 3 Published by Sunk Island Publishing 7 Lee Avenue, Heighington Lincoln, LN4 1RD http://www.artzero.org.uk First published in Great Works.

Other Works by Michael Blackburn

The Constitution Of Things Why Should Anyone Be Here And Singing? Backwards Into Bedlam The Lean Man Shaving The Ascending Boy Portrait Of The Artist As A Cyborg

1 a gash dead straight and south facing endless doors, grey slate roofs a good combination of castle and sardines the Romans would end their wall proud spawners of giants my father was a Durham miner he could justify almost anything Plato's Republic Caruso and Clara Butt look back the strident good humour Schubert on the piano delicately-sliced George Bernard Shaw on the sideboard was a good beginning.

2 dole days it was a dark thin drizzle my fingers were half-full of sleep keeping company with an iceberg outside Swan's Shipyard the omens were gathering around me like slaves to the market punching-in and lost in the murk pit heaps and dry middens. I never enjoyed dirty jokes

3 bestial appetites my place in the dole queue politics boiled down to a plague

4 there should be two toilets in a house his heresy was resisted mud, greyness and mediocrity we were standing on the mud I could see the North advancing

5 education build ships launch people I am not a hard man

6 the canny toon will be the city of the future under the city walls soothing lawns to dream in enemies were legion local architects were bellyaching Jags and Daimlers were cut down to size ear plugs with coffee we listed all the buildings took short cuts to the New Brasilia

7 this was a difficult time this throbbing, grimy, lovable, ugly artery was being reborn we should think about our houses set against a pastoral background in the mind of the artist a city in the image of Athens and Rome I was the devil incarnate we were delivered of a monstrosity nature has a way I'm resigned to being a loser

8 Bartok and Buildings in a temperate climate we did not want municipal jackbooters the arts are necessary as sewers football is the ballet the problem here is money I saw it as the natural flow of convictions we failed because management was complacent

the street sweeper would be the last thing to go

9 the engines juddered a sharp 90° swivel and we were facing south the reasoning came north clean rivers echo across the world dreams had to remain dreams

10 i I am a man of modest means a shaper of cabinet-like functions and people's brains ii I saw an opportunity I was lucky I was nervous I had reservations I am still perplexed I had heard rumours I was certainly determined I broke the council I also pressed on I hazarded I discussed my prophecy

11 breakfast time tea and toast with one small shadow children drift in I will not be attending church much of my method is creative tongues operate in the timbered Red House, the vol au vent discreetly delayed, the vin rose overdue a ray of light has tormented me unless I am singing solo the city skyline is blurred

12 brewery, plate glass, patios and fountains we were becoming self-sufficient this is easy I hammered away at a vast jigsaw puzzle marching around like Long John Silver lunch was taken I hammered away still convinced social surgery works

13 philosophers have brought me pleasure our northern worries clustering round the Pennines society is sick a ghost could set the world on fire we should embrace a release of the spirit my past was catching up on me a stream of bricks and brains

14 chimpanzees and yaks match our aspirations I see an arrogant beauty the Tyne God spreadeagled along floodlit terraces for our young people slaughter houses, slums, poverty are the intangibles I am a forgiving man but not by prayer I'll laugh all the way to hell graft and corruption provide the framework something got away

NOTE T Dan Smith (1915-1993) was a prominent politician in the north-east of England in the 1960s and was the Leader of Newcastle City Council between 1960 and 1965. He was responsible for a large amount of redevelopment within the city, including slum clearance and the building of new housing stock and a motorway network. He had a great vision of Newcastle as the 'new Brasilia' of the north and was a passionate exponent of regionalism and the arts. Unfortunately, his business dealings were tainted with corruption and after a number of trials he finally received a prison sentence in 1974. The poem was sourced from the text of An Autobiography by T Dan Smith, published by Oriel Press in 1970.