My second poetry collection is still available as a free e-book on the link below
A Line in the Sand
The boys were still singing, and the summer sun still shining
as they sailed out past Helen’s Bay, Crawfordsburn, Ballyholme,
where they had built sandcastles as children. They swam
the rest of that summer, and into autumn, off the shingle
of Seaford, Brighton, and Eastbourne, before sailing off again
to shovel sand by the spadeful into bags they stacked neatly,
a different kind of sandcastle; they dug in for the duration;
it’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.
A century later, on Portstewart Strand, stencil template and rake in hand
we rearranged the sand, made a shadow soldier, cap raised in farewell,
wrote your name beneath with our fingers, Robert Atkinson,
so you stood out from the crowd, and dated it, 2nd July 1916.
We stood back and admired our handiwork, a soldier played the last post,
the whole beach fell silent, but the wind still flapped the flags,
waves, from storms hundreds of miles away, still curled and crashed
on the shore; and it must have been the salt that stung my eyes.
We stepped back, climbed up, looked down from the headland,
November sun, slanting low from Inishowen, cast shadows
on a fine company of men, full of grit, a hundred of them, filed in,
“tallest to the right, shortest to the left, in three ranks, SIZE!”
We stood together, gave our last salute, said our final farewell,
and waited for the tide to come in, to take you with it again,
grain by grain, unmaking you for the last time; Bonsoir old thing,
cheerio chin-chin, napoo, toodle-oo, good-bye-ee.
BROTHERS IN ARMS
BROTHERS IN ARMS
They were boys of Carson’s army,
sons of Ulster, loyal and true,
marching off to France for glory,
fighting for the red, white and blue.
Description of T Atkinson on enlistment
height 5’7”, weight 122 lbs,
chest when fully expanded 34”,
complexion fresh, hair fair,
distinctive marks – broad scar
on bridge of nose, pulse 72.
In shattered stumps of Thiepval Wood
Tommy helped the dead and dying,
above the thunder of battle
he could hear his brother crying.
You are hereby warned that if,
after enlistment, it is found that
you have given a wilfully wrong answer
to any of the following questions
you will be liable to a punishment
of 2 years imprisonment with hard labour.
He picked up the broken body
of Ulster’s brave defender,
holding on with all his strength, said
“remember, Bob, no surrender.”
Private T Atkinson has undergone
a course of training at this depot
and is now qualified in first aid
and ambulance work. He has been
well behaved and has shewn
an intelligent interest in his work
Aldershot 20/11/07
Bob held his brother’s hand and said,
“Sure, there’s no winners in a war.
In the end all you’ve got are those
that lost, and those that lost some more.”
Men joining Section A Army Reserve
will be liable to be called out
on army service under the provision
of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907.
Mobilized at Cosham 5/8/14
Posted to 9th Field Ambulance 5/8/14.
The next morning Bob still hung on,
though he was very close to death,
he whispered this to his brother,
the smell of rum thick on his breath.
I certify that I am unmarried
and that my next of kin
is my mother, Mrs L Atkinson,
Hyndford Street, Belfast.
“Tommy, take me home to Ulster,
to the old church in Killyman,
mother can visit me with flowers,
please take me home Tom, if you can.”
Transferred to Section B Army Reserve
on demobilization 16/3/19
Tommy wept at Bobby’s graveside,
in the hushed trees of Aveluy Wood,
two years later he was sailing home,
but Bobby never could.
I do not claim to be suffering
a disability due to
my military service.
Place of examination Cologne 6/12/19
He carried Bobby’s last words home
to a broken hearted mother,
he carried his memory
to his grave, soldier, friend, and brother.
Tom Atkinson, Field Ambulance, R.M.A.C. 1890 – 1971
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
i.m. ‘Heart of Midlothian Pals Battalion’, 16th Royal Scots
Frank McGuinness wasn’t good with names,
so he called up the cast of ‘The Sons of Ulster’
from the back page of the Coleraine Chronicle,
a football team, although he can’t recall the club;
he hadn’t much interest in football,
but thought it would give them authenticity,
a sense of belonging to a particular place.
Imagine the first day of the season,
fans tumbled through turnstiles
full of anticipation and Saturday afternoon beer,
flags unfurled and scarves tied tight,
programs pushed into pockets,
filling the terraces, rank after rank,
to cheer a team that never took the field.
They saw no valiant attacks or heroic defence,
or their boys play as if their lives depend on it;
while shot after shot found its mark,
fans remained standing, until the final whistle,
and as they walked silently away,
Boyd, Currie, Ellis, Gracie, Wattie
remained on the field of play.
Truck Stop
Truck Stop
11:00 pm, 31 August ‘97
truck stop, half way between
Noosa and Cairns,
finished a smoke of Nimbin’s finest,
Marley’s little helper pulling me through
twenty-seven hours
care of McCafferty’s coach service.
A chipped Formica table,
microwaved sausage roll with BBQ sauce
(they didn’t have HP),
instant coffee in cardboard cup,
sweating legs sticking to a plastic seat.
A fourteen-inch colour TV,
chained to the wall,
with a crowd crying round it;
trucker drivers, and bikers,
and waitresses, and cooks,
and a lady dressed for… work.
None of them really knew her.
They weren’t related, or lovers,
or neighbours, or co-workers
or people that travelled the same bus
(I doubt she ever travelled by bus),
they didn’t drink in the same bar,
go to the same clubs,
or share a joke in the gym.
We hadn’t lost a cure for cancer,
or an Einstein, or a Dylan, or a Heaney,
or a Jesus.
And, Jesus, they were crying
like she was…
Jesus.
It may have been herbally induced apathy,
or being 10000 miles from home,
but
I didn’t feel anything
apart from a slight sense of perplexity,
that she seemed to be held
in the same esteem as Shane Warne,
or Kylie, or a schooner of VB.
Strand Cinema Poem
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES
for John McBride Neill
There was the Savoy and Lyceum,
the Majestic and Colosseum,
the Regal and the Roxy,
the Tonic and the Troxy,
the Princess and the Pallidrome,
the Alhambra and Hippodrome.
Great picture palaces,
art deco and glass,
velvet and brass,
where the poor of Belfast
could feel like stars
for a night.
And the Strand,
sailing up the Holywood Road
like a great ocean liner,
where my grandmother
took a flask of tea and sandwiches
to Gone With The Wind,
and my father watched
Flash Gordon and Roy Rodgers,
and rode an imaginary
Trigger the two miles home.
Now the Lido is a chapel,
the Metro sells fried chicken
the Apollo, a Chinese supermarket,
and the Alpha, a loyalist drinking den.
But the Strand,
where my father
saw Flash kiss Dale,
and my grandmother
saw Rhett kiss Scarlet,
where I kissed a girl badly
in the back row, five minutes
before the film ended,
the Strand
still stands.
still stands.
It’s Just a Ride
Comedy’s Castro,
revolutionary in more ways than one.
Stood on the same stage as Hendrix,
cancer eating you from the inside out,
and you still found time to light a cigarette,
inhale deeply, and shout
about the hypocrisy
of living in the world’s greatest democracy.
You pondered the injustice of the failed
assassination attempt on Regan,
that politicians all are devils,
and Bush is Satan’s son.
It was god and guns and love and peace,
it was an Alabama uncle’s love for his niece.
You asked us to consider why
people who believe in creationism
look remarkably unevolved,
and what would Jesus think
of people who wore crosses.
You told the suck your own cock joke,
and suggested we hunt and kill Billy Ray Cyrus
(now, with the benefit of hindsight,
there would have been an unexpected bonus
that even you couldn’t have foreseen).
You told a joke about the LA riots,
In a room full of headers,
And got a laugh, even though we knew
Belfast ones were better.
You believed to the end that
pornography is good,
war is wrong,
and all drugs should be legal,
not compromising a single inch.
When three shots rang out
and you fell dead to the stage
nine hundred people didn’t flinch.
Keep Digging – published
My poem “Keep Digging”, about the Tuam Babies, has been published by And Other Poems.
You can read it on the link below
‘Keep Digging’ by David Atkinson
Highly Commended
I was delighted to find out that my poem “Magnetic North” was highly commended in the Imagine Poetry Competition.
You can read the winning poem and this highly commended poems on the link below
https://imaginebelfast.com/poetry-and-politics-competition-results/
Paleontology Lesson
On Easter Sunday, with a sense of irony,
I took you hunting for fossils,
with a garden trowel, your red beach bucket,
and what my father would a called a “riddle”.
When we stopped to dig you asked how I knew
it was the right place, I told you to trust me.
I dug a hole into the past, you filled it with sea water,
swirling the Jurassic mud with your fingers,
dredging the hole with the bucket and sifting
sludge through the riddle like a couple of sourdoughs.
Ramblers circumnavigated us, but one stopped
to ask what we were doing, you told him,
and he looked at you as if you were mad,
and me as if I should have more sense,
and smiled politely and rambled on.
When we found our first one you held it
aloft, like a nugget of grey gold,
arms black to the elbows with lias clay,
a Gryphaea, the Devil’s toenail, seeing
the light, the first in 200 million years.
Stones speak to us without saying a word,
fragments of truth we piece back together,
evidence lies just below the surface,
if you know where to dig.
if you know where to dig.
David Atkinson 