The Mosaic Remains poems & images from Leicester’s Cultural Quarter 2015

by poets & artists from Bradgate Writers & ArtSpace

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© 2015 expresseum poetics press

www.expresseumpoetics.org.uk Authors and artists retain sole copyright of their individual poems and artworks. This e-chapbook is funded by the Everybody’s Reading Festival and the Heritage Lottery Fund.  

 

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Poems by:

Sean Benjamin Stacey Bennett Mandy Brook Dawn Brooks Jitendra Bhatt Rebecca Coulson Mark Goodwin Alison Heard Tara King

Artworks and poem-maps by:

Cover Neil Freeston Page 38 Eleanor Rowell Page 14 Sarah Bowmar Page 52 Mandy Brook Page 16 Ian Liburd Page 53 Rebecca Coulson Page 17 Ian Liburd Page 56 Mark Goodwin Page 25 Neil Freeston Page 60 Sean Benjamin Page 32 Sarbjot Sandhu   Page 62 Jonathan Mitchell Page 42 Chris Hipwell

Archival material is courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland. Archival maps and map-poems are best examined using a PDF-reader’s or e-book-reader’s zoom function.

Our thanks go to Sean for typing up the poems.

This collaborative collaged e-chapbook results from the ‘Reading Leicester’s Cultural Quarter’ and ‘Exploring the heritage of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter’ projects. Visit the projects’ website at https://culturalquarterheritage.wordpress.com  

Kulsoom Ian Liburd Karen Martinez Marie McGranaghen Jonathan Mitchell Karen Peckover David Rollins Eleanor Rowell Will White

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I rush in flustered, late Past the hum hum of sewing machines Stitching off the page Women, heads down or looking out Over crammed Union Special Workstations jowl to jowl Multi-coloured bobbins dulled To shades of grey As cloth invisibly stack up Change hands on Burton Street? Or was it Humberstone Street? I don’t know because I was late. Alison

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Layers The estate agent layout One bedroom luxury kitchen, bathroom The up and coming cultural quarter I moved into the converted factory The square flat in the flat square One moon filled night The bang banging of machinery Steam escaping, men shouting Levers stamping out heels and toes Wandering the dusty filled hallways I read the strange wall map No more flats 1 to 72 Just three floors of shoes and boots Manufacturing, management, meetings I lived in management Half my flat used to be personnel My made in china shoes Treading the not quite ancient map Of steam and typewriters No longer seen, no longer heard My square flat in the flat square David

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Machines and workers Amongst the noise They sat like purring silent cats, To piece the warp and weave, With stitched threads, yanked back Machines chatted, as workers Natter, the hum Drowns human sounds. Friends and diaspora, work shoulder to shoulder In piece rate, where cloth is Handed on, like un-complete charity. Where row by row yarn is pulled And cages hold sections, of Jeans, shirts and jumpers Workers compete in time, For fine lines, of stitched thread, Perfect in every sense. Passed and passed to Complete, in factories of Spinning yarn Expensive stone Alexandria, others lost in time Yarn warp and weave Make cloth For common workers Of factories and great mills. Johnathan

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Wandering here and there and not Knowing where I am heading Passed St George’s St and into Queen Street The wind’s blowing heavy I see the clouds travelling against their will The people passing by in a hurry. The mother with a push chair and the baby’s crying It is so crowded but still feel lonely The builders working on a skeleton of an Odeon cinema. They building something for People entertaining Ear deafening sounds of digging and the Traffic causing a chaos. I am out there without any purpose And wonder where all This crowd is going. Further down a group of youngsters dancing Loud music that changes the rhythm of my Thinking. Jit

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A roman coin in Morledge Street Can’t spend it today Brick kiln lane Eleanor

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Conservation roman medieval core; Potential remains rather than habitation The coin refuses roman sites cannot Rule out pottery kiln intact. His hands sealing like a cellophane bag The ancient architecture. Gargoyles from bullets and bombs Shows garnish posters on curved walls And knotted trees, shattered glass Splinters my feet I pick a memory like a rare photo Hate has at its core a heart of granite Climb the parapet walls of pride Sean

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Charles Street sky Witches hat Oxide effected Distinctively clad White corner watch tower Its pointed spire of green cooper And Alexandra’s house Built of terracotta wholly Karen

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A mosaic maze of melting brick, Of a surreal stone land unknown Looking down as a bird soaring above. The mosaic remains a world away from home. Streets lined on paper uncaptured forgotten names Scribbled and scrawled from edge to edge Entrancing an older mind Like an infant child’s imagination in sketch. The mosaic maze of confusion A labyrinth of tarmac and pencil lines My mind cannot make sense Of the pencil and brick world entwined. Stacey

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The window smiled as children screamed happiness The joy from the foot to the soul The stone cried for help as it lay in isolation The door locks away sadness and treasures happiness Dawn & Kulsoom

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Children play with leaves and sketchings on the bark Granite headstones surround church Dawn

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Lines draw maps and words, and Words on maps How many have hung on the lines that have Drawn culture quartered? How can you draw A cultural half? Can you draw a cultural whole? Will

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1. Fearful 2. Beautiful 3. Pathways 4. Social gathering 5. Friendships 6. Pass the Phoenix, that’s what I would head for 7. passing by St George’s way 8. Leicester Mercury clock for time and temp 9. Between Midland St and Burton Street 10. Notice graffiti on the walls 11. Modern and peaceful 12. London Road, Victoria Park 13. Hosiery workers- factory workers

Tara

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1. Sturgess showroom on Charles St next door to Ale Wagon pub 2. Old car showroom selling 3. Jaguar Daimler Land Rover 4. E type Jag in red 5. Rover 2000 with bucket seat in white 6. Daimler in black 7. Jaguar just like Insps Morse in red and black 8. Land Rover for Cheshire fire services 9. Ranger Rover in dark green 10. Peter sales manager having gin and tonic at pub 11. Harry polish cars having a pint 12. Julie having a kiss with Frank 13. Poor old Mike not selling a car today having a whisky 14. No more Sturgess car showroom, move to outer town still selling

Jaguar and Land Rover

Mandy

Charles Street police station, a small support to carry a projecting weight. Mosaic (for disabled people) ornamental stone or metal openwork in window opening. Lee Street Telecom building a dome on a roof or turret. Wimbledon Street glazed decorated pottery tiles Former Odeon Cinema alternate high and low walls on a parapet. Halford Street a continuous decorative horizontal band projecting from a wall and usually moulded. Yeoman Street a range of decorative arches on the face of a building. St George’s Church slender spire rising from the ridge of a roof. Jit

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Rusty old building vanished from the face of Charles Street. Cinemas, nightclubs, pubs, where they all gone? All changed, everything’s changed yet nothings changed? Council building, gone destroyed, vanished disappeared. Buildings, Queen Street, which raised young minds gone, felt as though the soul of the earth has vanished. Generations, ancestors, all grew up in Humberstone Gate, a part of History destroyed, what are we meant to treasure now? Dawn

Mark and his bloody maps Our bus got lost somewhere Along the edge of St George’s way We crashed into bow top railings Became multi-folded Into strident ink smells Ancient parchment crumpled Around cathedral square Bells rang uncontrollably along Black lines marched over Naked plants Wild garlic, cyclamens, birch spewed out Onto Charles St crying As they slammed into the boundary wall At age concern Out bus got lost somewhere Along St George’s way And now we are all snarled up In the cartographer’s madness Alison

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Walking into a map This is surreal walking into a map Searching for clues of historical themed Building old and new very important in The eyes of historians the empire building Stretches out on Southampton St decadent In its own right must have a lot of history Behind it like the olden days in knitwear Hosiery that sort of thing the outlay or The building looks quite pristine with Its red brickness The street seems that it was a hustle and bustle Have trades running through it And lots of different goods being on Sale with shut bidding and even Bartering all blending in which the Euphoric cultural corner has Ian  

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Passion – walls on a parapet Joy – vacant sites, awaiting development Despair – shallow column Pleasure a dome on a roof turret Content surfaced in tarmac Longing usually moulded The walls on a parapet were splintered with the sand of passion A dark moment of despair felt the shallow column Joy arose from the vacant site Our longing, usually moulded to belong To be content, a smothered surface in tarmac The dome on a roof turret awaited its pleasure Marie

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In Rutland St into hole staircase Red carpet staircase With sound track of James bond Odeon Carry on camping music on stage Phoenix out of art works Paddington bear in tent Singing and dancing of Bollywood Jim digging near old sub station Built in 1920 old crane Looking at old maps Jim 19 years old Only know metrics Jim old Fred seeing old factory Fred old maps Fred and Jim are different ages Having a great time Humberstone Gate Sainsbury’s Buying Heinz bake beans with Sainsbury’s bread on toast Having hardy bottle of white wine Apple pie with walls ice cream Buying bacon and eggs with fresh fruit With Sainsbury’s orange bags Catching bus in pub singing out of tune Try to be Frank Sinatra my way Catch Arriva fox bus to Scraptoft Lane Old policed station no more Missing traffic warden Old panda car Police men with uniform in blue No more blue light No more white jag Here are traffic lights on roundabout Lots of Eddie trucks too many cars Mandy

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Hate, love, joy, despair The cracked glass envy the frame it’s fitted in The brick hides secret frustration Of half men built of stone Decadent history set in larvatite and stone The walls of hate need demolishing Sean

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Roof confuses the height Leicester city greeds for more changes Slates shines and excited with the rain Red colour shows fear The cracked glass envy the frame it’s fit in Doors open and bewilders me with a new future The walls of hate need to be demolished Old building changes its colour in anger Steel joy of shinning The brick hides secret happily The area frustrated with the crowd The stone without any guilt Jit

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Walk’s End as whispered by St George i have fallen on the corner i am on the prow of division i am wide eyed on my back the exchange building is slender my arms are as long as Rutland Street & Halford Street i embrace this slice of building with my street -long arms i have fallen beneath a tower this thin edge of wedge rises safe & dangerous as a lighthouse here is the exchange the exchange that

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time demands the rate @ which lives divide the sound of hooves clips into the sea -shore surf of emergency service sirens the waters of Rutland Street & the current -ridden straits of Halford rub along coast the exchange is a battered spit slowly eroding in time’s cold brine i have tripped i have tripped my myth’s switch fallen i stare @ a chess-piece building staring back staring down

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down the decades the centuries the exchange ’s windows suck in sunlight by day then shed electric-glare by night i will lie here on the cobbles here on the Tarmac on the surface of the Earth until the owl in my church’s yard stretches her voice to touch the ex change’s glow ing glass Mark

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Roman kiln before Gallowtree Gate Gate at Belgrave village shows the skyline Of the church and nearby medieval remains Southampton Street of the old town Beautiful features happy to be tall glazed with featured glass Eleanor

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A preservation of order Of half men built of stone A building, curious of columns and turrets Encaptured emotions, set in larvikite and stone An open archway, reflects emptiness like glass Loneliness suffocates a building, with a weight of stone. Stacey

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1. The dome on a roof turret awaited its pleasure. 2. St James, a street 3. With its majestic slender spire rising, projecting 4. Contrasting beneath the echo’s from Humberstone Gate 5. Our longing, our city. Moulded to belong 6. Can joy arise from a vacant site 7. Preserve, restore and admire the range of decorative arches. 8. Charles Street, would Charles know its fate? 9. A dark moment of despair felled the shallow column 10. Our community, Camden, Colton and Halford Street 11. Usually moulded to belong 12. Ornamental stone 13. Mental open work 14. Intensified this sense of enclosure.

Marie

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1. The tearful decorated pottery tiles enjoy the rain lashing against them 2. The happy railway that has allowed people to travel over time 3. Excited copper clad that is the envy of those it surrounds 4. Confident iron that supports its buildings with ease 5. The guilty welsh slate that moves easily and cuts like glass

Tara

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Memories of last winter, is it real or is it paper? Place me in the heart of this moment, let me find my way Through the places of Leicester, lead me to my social gathering, to my friends Allow me to pass by streets and places, like St George’s Way, between Midland Street and Burton Street passing by graffiti on the walls. Modern, peaceful, leading me to you all. Standing outside the Phoenix wondering what were you before? So I stand and stare and take in the distant view, holding my map that takes us from the old Leicester to the new, dim past hosiery works that have changed over time. Modern flats, to a Sainsburys on the corner, how it’s all changed. The Cultural Quarter allows us to reminisce, to see things how they used to be before. Tara

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Old station was Leicester police headquarters With white Portland stone front with Old Jag in white with blue flashing lights It was first traffic warden in England Old panda car in white Policeman going out on beat wearing helmet No more police station now a stock broker office Which is brewin and dolphin With profit on stock market up and down No more Spread Eagle pub next door pull down No more policemen at pub missing pint of beer Mandy

Cultural quarter List of emotions x5 Emotions The intensive nature

1. Excitement – dome contained warm, orange red brick colour 2. Unsure – string course Swannington railway a continuous journey 3. Positive – the old Lewis’s tower skyline of Leicester throughout

time 4. Joy – 5. Distraction – the hidden churchyard, full of head stones, tombs

and obelisks and footed sarcophagus 6. Contentment – 7. Strong – cast and wrought iron gates along the churchyard

gateway 8. Happy – tall permanent structures some glazed with featured glass

14 lines long The positive skyline

   

Eleanor

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Hate has at its heart a core of granite Joy rose like a dome high above Climb the parapet walls of pride A column of despair Love shone through the glass Karen

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Jim from Newcastle working in Leicester Digging hole in Rutland St Orton Square Near old substation making sure not cut off power Built in 1920s very unloved old green paint Old crane in Queen St opp the old Odeon Looking at old maps with power cable out of date The old maps was in yards and feet Jim 19 years old not understand old measure Only know metrics Jim hates big maps wish it was on laptop Old Fred come old transit van in 1970s Seeing old factory working with lots of people Fred still got old maps in his ford escort in white Fred was showing Jim difference-shapes of buildings Mandy

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The cultural quarter   The corners of the cultural quarter Are bursting like tar soaked lungs. Haemorrhaging bin bags pour From take away bins, Empty fag packets Lay strewn in rain washed streets. Blind alleys refusing to be hidden Cry for my attention like new born babes. Streets saturate with busy footsteps I leave quickly as to not leave my own. Rain pours down in mid-summer Hits hot tarmac, vapours soar Evaporates into muggy air; Mist appears on plate glass windows, Moisture thickens like broth Dilutes between pockets of polluted air; Bleeding sirens echo like old memories A fifty pence piece glistens like a jewel On wetted slabs; I feel threatened by Memories of my childhood Buried like earth beneath sodden green leaves. Cell phone chimes cut through the airwaves Like sharpened knives through a cellophane membrane; Women dressed in sarees and burkas embrace each other Their bodies weave and fuse together like living cells. Power dressed business men press hard flesh upon flesh Dark grey and black suits silhouette against white washed archaic walls; Silver batoned like railings meander like sleek, skinned snakes, Their aim to Protect the unassuming From metal monsters that curb our paths. Seated side by side like sewing machine operatives Late night bars and tenement buildings Fight for pride of place. Fag butts lie scattered like confetti in gutters, Acid rain bleaches the tarmac, cascading down drain slats Into secret river caves;

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The church stands alone and is crumbling, Holding names of an ancient past; Unattended graves of dead men and president lie speechless; Above are snarling oaks. Gargoyles loom and threaten Lonesome pedestrians, Passing through the winding path to a place unknown; Secular hall busy’s its self with art, Metaphorical proses and rhetorical speeches; The face of Thomas Paine breaks contours On a stone brushed wall. His eyes blank, expressionless, like bare canvas, Pours over the cities sidewalks and busying roads; Watching and still waiting for equality and chivalry, Warning the foot loose and fancy free, Fighting for equal pay and racial harmony; His age of reason reasoning The plight of mankind and climate change; The U.S. have Benjamin franklin and the dollar. We have rule Britannia and Simon Cowell. In streets like these, we die like men with no vision Or soar like eagles or transfigured saints. Or hope of a brighter future Drowned out by futilities strain; And corporate lies. Sean

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Old snooker club opposite old Odeon in Rutland St Playing pool shoot red ball into hole Odeon had red carpet with large staircase Seeing Michael Caine in Italian job with sound track Matt Monroe driving open top car in Alps Eating my ice cream in 1969 Michael Caine with Alfie and James Bond films Also Carry on Camping with Shirley Bassey singing on sound track Cross road to Curve theatre doing plays and music on stage Walk along the Phoenix Art centre showing local films Seeing Paddington bear also Hollywood hits Phoenix showing pride of miners’ strike in south wales Having local made ice cream. Mandy

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An extensive it’s the coin refuses roman Trades eastwards lane; which Gallowtree Gate indicates building. Southampton Street, brick kiln lane A number of Roman Street; habitation Poorly defined importance. Conservation potential the coin rule on His hand ancient gargoyles shows was Splinters; I pick up hate out of granite Roman remains refuse pottery sealing Architecture; bullets posters knotted feet Sean

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Happy – brick- stone feature Angry – building – decorative arches – spire Fear – granite – Camden Street Confusion – red – projecting Doubt – roof – horizontal Joyful – arch – dome Blessed – iron – glazed Slender Window Decorative Characteristics- gateways

1. The spire towered anger 2. Fearful granite shallowed 3. Casted a roof of doubt 4. A confusion of red 5. Arch cast joyful on the city 6. Iron blessed to be strong 7. Glaring stone features 8. Decorative arches gleam with pride 9. Scattering light through glazed 10. Angelic were the slender wooden beam windows that threw contrast

to the powerful gateways 11. And characteristic walls 12. The building stood happy

Rebecca

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The Lewis’s tower of Humberstone Gate Standing strong and positive in the skyline Of Leicester throughout time St George’s churchyard with its distractions of headstones, Tombs and sarcophagus to the west of the church. The strong cast and wrought iron gates of Colton Street like dominos at the entrance Of the former factory on Queen Street A string course of railway starting at Swannington in 1834 transporting bricks From whitwick and ibstock, these bricks Creating a noticeable array of beautiful red And orange brick buildings along the pathways of Leicester Eleanor

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The map of Cultural quarter looks like a part of my body Old and wrinkled but still standing there showing directions Many part of the area divide in section like my heart Each area whispers their history, some memories hiding The train has washed the track of footprints but not the image The stories are buried underneath the desperate for discover I have been told to write a poem on this Cultural history But you just have to look around and you will see the poems Written on each wall and bricks , you hear the horse’s feet Buildings can be demolish just like my dreams and wishes There are some still standing with a new look, I envy it’s not me Someone could have break me and then rebuild me like them Fifteen years now, it was then quiet and foxes hunted at ease Look around, you will not see the same old street, the sky bleeds As even the hollow spaces are not empty. Listen and listen hard, ever corner of the street citing something Some with smile and new look and some with tears borrowed from my eyes. Jit

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Mosaic streets lay out the preservation of order Charles Street sets out men built of stone. Buildings, curious of columns and turrets Encaptured emotions, Charles Street sets them out in larvikite and stone On open archway on Queens Street, Reflects emptiness alongside cracked glass Loneliness suffocates me on Queens Street, Like a pillow crafted of stone. Spires of iron adorn Erskine Street Cracking a fear inside low pitched gables Erskine Street, flooded with guilt, remorse here. A sight of wonderment here of potter brick domes Makes these mosaic streets my home. Stacey

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