My elder brother (Paul James 1957 - 1975) was born severely disabled, mentally and physically. My mother knew as soon as she first held Paul that all was far from well, but it was several months before she could get the doctors to admit it. Like Judy Fryd, who founded the charity Mencap, my mum was told, by inevitably male doctors, to lock her child up, forget about him... and have another one. But, sure, I knew him, we visited Muckamore and Altnagelvin, where they finally killed him, I mean where he died. Sure, I think about him... often.
Like every single fucking day?
The theme of Tiny World was suggested by the local branch of the Stanza poetry group I was in the habit of attending for their monthly write a poem exercise.
I started trying to conjure an idea of Paul gestating in my mothers womb, that sense of wonder and freedom inherent in the very act of... becoming.
There had been, in my childhood, whispered heartbreaking talk, pushed aside, mostly, before my own coming, that a
failure to administer oxygen (mum had a home birth, the midwife forgot oxygen canisters) resulted in Paul’s lifelong condition.
Initial intention and the finished work often differ but words come, regardless. So, meditating on the wonder of a winter sea, as is my wont (in winter), I wrote a very literal Tiny World poem for the Stanza group. A few years later, when I came to demo the words for Señor Bell, I returned to the shore. Took me a while to get round to reciting it I guess, and the rushing in of tide over shingle is soothing balm to a troubled mind. Trust my Fiddly friend to pick up on it.
lyrics
TINY WORLD
A crystal world came clear to me.
It was right there, and I could see
Like a non-believer brought to bear
Witness to what was finally there.
Like the infant on discovering youth,
Or the detective who finds the proof,
Or an old maid at her spinning wheel Unspooling the grim tale reveal.
Sleep broke through this wall of sense
Unveiling the tiny world within,
Containing the immense
Mountains on each continental shelf, Containing vast stores of mineral wealth.
A colourful world, not black and white,
Some parts in darkness, others in light.
With winds that blew strong and breezes mild Containing every kind of small animal
And the Blakean child.Tropical fishes, exotic birds, this was all too much, too much for words.
So, I called on Satchmo, come blow your horn Because this surely deserves praise
To be heaped upon its actuality.
Like the swimmer who loves the sea,
Or the sailor out there on his boat,
Or the sperm that starts to float
Through the ovum In the egg crack,
And so I reeled in and doubled back.
I saw a Leviathan far from shore,
Then spied a desert followed by many more.
I heard voices raised in lamentation,
A song that sounded forth from every nation.
I became giddy and felt trepidation,
like a biblical God at the week’s end of creation. Forget the tricksters and the mountebanks,
For this tiny world I truly must give thanks.
Tiny, tiny, but oh so clear and so very, very bright.
My tiny world came to life this night.
Tiny but rounded, full and perfectly formed.
Frozen at its poles and, in the middle, warm.
A tiny globe as in a drop of dew.
This tiny world was a wonder, true.
Suspended there in space and time,
This singular world was surely mine
So I took it now, gently in hand,
Like a timer filters a grain of sand.
A world of mercy, a world of fear.
I held it close and I wished you were near.
For the subject of my poem was you.
I just couldn’t make the words ring true.
The world that seemed perfect and small,
Now rolled away till it wasn’t there at all
It rolled away as I lay in slumber’s arms.
It rolled away, and so went its charms.
It rolled away and I could only sigh,
As only you remained in my mind’s eye.
You, and the life that you had to endure.
From that memory I tried to procure
Some words that could tell the tale of your wounded brain and pallor pale.
Your existence spent in that house
Up there on the hill
Suffering all those torments
Until you became so very ill.
In Altnagelvin at nineteen you died, and Oh my brother, how we all cried. Someday my words for you
They may be unfurled,
But for now they’re elusive,
Like that tiny world.
credits
from Utopia,
released February 1, 2019
Gavin Martin - Words, Martin Bell - Music
The Headstrong Mining Company is the latest incarnation of the creative partnership of Multi-Instrumentalist Martin Bell (
Ex. The Wonder Stuff) and Spoken Word Artist / Music Critic Gavin Martin (NME, Daily Mirror). The dashing pair also go under the names "Martin & Bell", as well as "Bell and the Irishman....more
Poet Douglas Kearney and composer/producer/drummer Val Jeanty link up for a a compelling LP that feels like the written word come to life. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2021
