Memories (Luton Fun Palace 3)

As part of the Luton Fun Palace, 2014, Fay Roberts and Sophia Walker took part in a found-poetry/ collaborative poetry/ beat poetry experiment to encapsulate the day in word form, accompanied by the band that had inspired the art that had inspired the graffiti that had inspired the poetry, and accompanied by dancers inspired by the music. With us so far?! :)

All the poems combine work by both poets. The third (and final) one is below:

Memories

Every wall is a gateway,

Every picture a window,

Electrons dance

And eyes multiply.

We branch,

Fractal acts of truthful fiction.

Metal light as paper,

Resin heavy with history,

Voices raised in clarion,

Giving back feelings from

Before they were born

And breathed the same air.

Downstairs, someone put big dreams

On top the TV next to a sign saying

‘Draw what you remember’

I’ll remember this.

When I’m 86 and drooling in a nursing

Home, it won’t be traffic jams, council tax

And the day I got promoted.

It’ll be the days like this,

The days we got up and did.

The sum of a life is the moments

You lived: it’s the first time a 5

Year old made snow, a lemonade

Bottle turned tornado, Hey mum!

Look mum! Someone drew a body

On the wall!!!

I remember every village fete,

I can’t remember the colour of

My first iphone but in 70 years

I’ll still know what I wore in

Every Halloween parade.

The costumes were home-made -

It’s amazing how much imagination

You can make from cardboard,

From being bored, get on board

The best thing we ever do

Is get involved.

I will not grow old as expected

Life is not a check-list

The beauty’s in the messes,

The best bits, fulfilling of

The senses

I said I’d remember this, at least

The sense of it: community,

Free-form creativity, hanging out

Collaboratively…

We are busy building memories

We hear this advice:

Strip mining will not suffice;

If you go in a straight line,

You’ll never find life.

And, on the other side,

In an intimate shrine,

We touch big dreams,

While beams play

And these rays graze

More than our eyes.

We have absorbed random,

We are ready for the next step.

[Instrumental]

And now?

We have eschewed the

Sandtraps of nostalgia,

Gathering what we had

And sharing it with hope,

Standing on the shoulders

Of those who loved and laboured,

So that we - in turn -

Can take our gazes higher

And, with busy hands

And bright eyes,

Clasp the span of ages,

And swing into a new dance

When our day is done.