Rich Cook
Article
Rich Cook writes poetry. His work has previously appeared in Ink, Sweat & Tears and the RPS Notes into Letters project. He is currently working on his MA portfolio, a collection of poems about his upbringing in the West Midlands and its industrial heritage.
Email: RichardCook96@yahoo.co.uk
View as PDF: Rich Cook - Poetry
Illumination
(For Murdoch, Boulton and Watt)
Roll up the shutters Mr Murdoch, let the people see!
Six years of working the coal, knowing
that it harnessed the two great properties of the sun;
heat and light, combustion
in its correct proportions proved elusive
until Mister Watt perfected the steam engine.
I walked 300 miles from Redruth to Birmingham
with nothing more than an idea,
a desire to illuminate this Black Country,
what followed was a summoning;
gas- spirit of the coal, awakened
from the powdery fissures of nugget after nugget,
I captured its invisible vapors in retort.
Working the black gold, examining
its every nook until I had control,
wherefore it could be lit without fear of retribution.
When I had begun to perfect the process I had the audacity
to fill a bladder on a dense winter’s night
and light our way along Medlock Bank
leading my men like a piper across the battlefield.
This, it could be said, my first victory,
although the flame was little more than a firefly
quickly followed by a brief fulguration
of the Soho Foundry, the light a simple flash,
but enough to fuel encouragement.
Progress Mr Murdoch we cannot exist in the dark forever
When the flame was mastered I strung
a line of 60 lamps across the foundry yard
each one lit by hand, once they were all ablaze
they did scintillate with a brilliant flare which burned
in amber, red and gold.
As I surveyed the faces of those who had come to witness
the turning of night back in to the day,
I was struck by the change in register,
each set of eyes flickering as wild as the lamps
that roared before us.
Robin
Drove around the estate in a roller,
cream leather upholstery
and a quarter inch of maroon gloss paint,
applied by hand, liked to pretend
he was a surgeon, always wore a single red
carnation, in the lapel of his double breasted
cut at Hunstman of Savile Row.
Liked a snifter of first growth claret
always Margaux or Mouton.
I remember him eating steak tartare
in the kitchen at Lodge Road, biggest house on the block
the one with the horse chesnut
all my friends would raid on autumn evenings
like mini bank robbers,
scratchy balaclavas swaddling their tiny bonces.
He left one Christmas morning to take his mistress
“fat Jill” with her candy floss hair
on the Orient Express and returned
just before New Year to his wife
the first female Magistrate in town,
who accepted his belated Xmas present
of a tartan shopping trolley housing two bottles
of Gordon’s dry gin.
Fat Jill kept on until his death,
we saw her stomping down the corridor
the last time I visited at the private hospital,
the nurse with the drinks trolley
offering tea or coffee and a small selection
of fizzy drinks, Robin searching
for a final glass of claret, defiantly announcing
I have never drunk a can of coke in my life.
Preservation
The family has decided to retire our father
for his preservation,
we have found the perfect spot on the factory floor
which he will soon occupy amongst
the antiquated lathes
roped off with a thick line of velvet
dusted free of fine metal filigree,
the wooden slats to which he will be bolted
have been skinned
of near a centuries worth of industrial grime.
At night I sneak into his room
and funnel litres of silken oil through his open mouth
as his engine softly splutters,
it pours like freshly harvested honey,
building strength as his inner workings
are in need of continual lubrication.
His body is growing stiffer with the weight of his new wiring,
hindering movement so I work globs of axel grease
into his joints to ease the strain,
when he eats his insides rotate like a belt drive
emitting a satisfying little hum,
in time this will amplify
filling a 20,000 square foot warehouse
with the revs of his motor at full steam.
