I am looking at the future,
It is after another one of those: weddings, engagements or births,
One of those things where you can put the word Royal in front of it,
And report it as news,
Whilst benefits get cut,
Strikes get planned,
And governments crumble.

It is much, much after that-
And the Queen has moved out.
Rent prices in London just simply weren’t enough for her,
Or perhaps her blue blood could not take the heatwaves,
But she can’t put Buckingham Palace on Rightmove,
And prime property won’t stay empty for long-
The people have taken the palace.

It started slowly at first,
The men and women and children
That breathed England,
That sleeped and dreamed England;
The homeless,
The desperate,
That were moved every time there was a parade,
Those that slept outside in the rain,
They felt it:
That new emptiness inside,
And found themselves a place
No, a palace to reside.

Now there are barbecues in the gardens,
And they’ve torn down the gate,
We serve the dinner we made together
Around half eight,
We sold all the paintings,
And returned all you stole,
There are rumours of a Corbyn wing
on the third floor.

We’d fit a city in that building,
That you kept for a family.

I think,
You’re one step closer to building a home,
If you make a chair instead of a throne.

****

TO BE KNOWN

I want the universe to know me.
I want history to familiarise itself with my name.
No one wants to be forgotten,
But not everyone wants fame.

The Mason marks the wall,
Signs his stone like a painting.
Engraves his initials,
As if it were the inside of a wedding ring-
Expects the castle to love him back.
Thinks to himself, I built this,
Built it well,
Fit for a king
And it will surely outlive me

As my stories outlive me.

Yet his name will fall through the cracks,
Along with his legacy,
Along with the facts,
Time too often appeases amnesia.

And on the walls,
On the doors,
Names have been clawed.
Scratched into the surface,
Etching to be known,
Leaving scars on the stone.
We can only hope to be remembered
As long as a castle stands.

Some men,
Few,
Make it in to myths,
In to tales of boys who rule countries,
In to stories,
That warrant dragons in the gift shop.

But yesteryear
Refuses to take an accurate register;
And time itself will bury us all,
Make us legends or fools.

****

EXECUTIONS

I asked my mother
If I could go to the castle,
I wanted to dance with the Lords and the Ladies:
To eat fresh bread and drink fine wine,
Or grape juice,
Or something.
It is hard to know what it means to be a child in times like this.

My mother retorts,
Her hearty rough laugh,
That quickly turns into a cough,
A howl,
A summon for the grim reaper-
But she is laughing at me.

Says there’s only one way,
Paupers like us end up in the castle.
And I had forgotten that they keep the crown among the convicts,
That they always party above the prisoners.

We watched them drag them to the hanging point once,
Lined up in a death’s row,
Their fates sealed
Like the chains on the feet.

And we thought it fun,
The excitement of it all,
The town gathered-
Cheered!
As death roared back.

Before I think about dying for too long,
Start to count the siblings I have outlived,
Or the friends stuck in chimneys,
Or the girls crushed by donkeys that surprisingly can’t fly,
My mother reminds me we are not aristocracy,
Reminds me that, that is what castles are for,
That they are there to remind of us war,
Of us and them.

I do not suspect she’ll be around for long,
To tell me where I can and can’t go.

Death is a next-door neighbour
Who visits far more often than grief.

These poems were commissioned by First Draft and first performed at our Flying Donkeys event at Newcastle Castle as part of our Let The Artists In! project.

Ruth Awolola is an award-winning poet based in London who’s work has been published in Rising Stars: New Young Voices in Poetry. She is a talented writer who has performed all over the country.

Find out more about Ruth: www.achuka.co.uk/blog/new-young-voices-in-poetry-1-ruth-awolola/ 

(after Open Mike Eagle)

They tore down my auntie’s building,
kicked out her great grandchildren,
stone by stone
this terradome had never known such growing pains.
They put me on a rack,
built a spine
from timber and bone,
so, you might play a melody
from my xylophone ribcage.

The price of development has a human cost-
A bullet hole in my stomach
and a stone splintered exit wound.
The rubble rustles in their pockets-
the doctors who said
I was a threat to the health of progression,
smiling through cavities and
yellowing teeth cut on battlements.

They tore down my auntie’s building,
kicked out her great grandchildren,
kicked out the thieves,
kicked out the cobblers,
mutineers, teachers,
crooked policemen.
The curtain call came tumbling down.
The curtain wall came crumbling down
to the theme of our swansong. Don’t applaud.
Can’t you hear these walls?

Can you hear it?
That’s the sound of them tearing my body down,
stone by stone,
my Jenga home
was pulled apart like the fibres from my flesh.
Can you taste it?
That’s the ash we came from,
the sawdust spilling from the blocks
that built the walls you cannot touch.
Can you see them?
We are the shadows in the Castle Garth,
the chill in the Keep,
can you feel it?

They tore down my auntie’s building,
kicked out her great grandchildren,
stone by stone,
we haunt the place we once called
home.
Can you hear that?
That’s the sound of them tearing my body down.

This poem was commissioned by First Draft and first performed at our Flying Donkeys event at Newcastle Castle as part of our Let The Artists In! project.

Fahad Al-Amoudi performing at our Flying Donkeys event at Newcastle Castle. Photo by Rachel Fernández-Arias

Fahad Al-Amoudi is a spoken word poet who combines striking and powerful writing with a performance style that draws you in to listen closely. He has performed throughout the UK, and with The Poetry Experiment he collides his poetry with music.

Find out more about Fahad: https://www.facebook.com/freeformfahad/

NB: All words found in the signage and exhibit labels of the Living Worlds gallery at Manchester Museum.

1. Our Hearts Must be Very Quiet to Hear it

Aye-aye. Saw wandering domesticated longnose ape. Must be humans. Our great-eyed monitor Dianas, Kirks, Pitmans: resplendent admirals, common urchins, clouded goliaths. Hunting our hearts? Must be. Great quiet gannets, greater quiet parrots, pipe down frogmouth: Hear our humans.

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. Crow, crow, crow. Our ruddy, grizzled humans must knot be quiet. Silver-washed, pearl-bordered, rainbow-billed: carrion humans. Be superb, be sacred, be sociable. Be large, be small. Bee.

Be very quiet to hear it. American woodchuck flying storm to Chinese. Hooded hellbender. Slender sun hammer. Hear it?

2. Plaster cast of the shape of the body of a dog buried in ash at Pompeii

Aye-aye. The domesticated longnose ape humans jumping eastern. Sea shape of golden paradise buried in ash. Grey musk, spiny heart: the greater Pompeii.  The spur-thighed, star-striped, butcherbird harvest of sloth dragon. The humans: hunting cast of geometric fruit.

Fly western. Hog petrel, squirrel poppy, harvest macaroni. Shag brill body basking in honey. Pike wild humans piping in mud. Shape a fresh paradise crested in a common heath, backed in marbled Apollo. Bee superb, bee sacred, bee sociable. Large, small, resplendent.

Bee blue. Thin plaster ruffled in eastern storm. Emperor knot lesser-spotted. Fire-bellied spitting king. Cast shape of diamondback mandrill? Toucan.

3. Specimens in Alcohol Can Last for a Very Long Time

Aye-aye. Domesticated longnose ape humans hunting time. Lyre’s song billed in mountains, tents, barns. Very chequered specimens: grizzled harpy, lowland gypsy, pale skipper, spectacled goliath. Flying howlers pointed blood time. Bee snappers, bee hog-nosed, bee clouded. Bee widow. A spiked, spiny cricket bat can last for a very long time.

Ghost grass in black sand. Burrowing fire in white plains. Lyre’s swift humming song mayfly for last big-eared apes. Raven monkeys wolf down poison water.

A tip, humans: nurse alcohol, swallow slow.

4. We Can All Help by Being Careful How We Use Things

Aye-aye. Use toad carrier. Use wood cane. Use silver cape. All musk poisoned, all sea poisoned, all domesticated longnose ape humans poisoned: use silver cape, silver tent, silver shell. Edible fruit knot spotted. All tree bald. Swallow bark, rock, dung. Help by being earthworms. Help by being reticulated beetle apes, grizzled mud moles, mountain soil workers. Bee mute, bee pale, bee lesser-spotted. Bee how we all bee: spotted by dodo; red, blue, white, grey. Earth by black.

Rabbit footed. Horseshoe. By being careful, we carrion. Salamander bird, vulture fish, stag lion, centipede shark. Dingy things, we carrion.

Aye-aye. Saw wandering wild longnose ape. Being humans. We can all help. Tip: use stone things.

David Hartley writes strange stories about strange things for strange people. His unsettling flash fiction collection Spiderseed was published by Sleepy House Press in 2016. He lives in Manchester, where he can often be found haunting the open mics of various spoken word events.

His fiction has appeared in Ambit, Structo, Black Static and The Alarmist. He is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing.

Find out more about David: www.davidhartleywriter.com

This digital piece has been commissioned as part of our Arts Council funded Let The Artists In! project, which aims to connect artists and audiences with the collections in museums, libraries and archives in new and exciting ways. Explore our other digital commissions here.

In honour of the pop music world the piece references, the video is three and a half minutes long, the ideal length of a pop song according to the KLF – although early Beatles tracks were nowhere near that long.

Personally, Fat Roland has little interest in the Beatles, although he does like butter.

Find out more about Fat Roland, including where to see his show Seven Inch at the Edinburgh Fringe this August: www.FatRoland.co.uk

This digital piece has been commissioned as part of our Arts Council funded Let The Artists In! project, which aims to connect artists and audiences with the collections in museums, libraries and archives in new and exciting ways. Explore our other digital commissions here.

One of the most beautiful items in Bolton Museum is the 3000-year old coffin of a woman called Tayuhenet. However, it contains the body of a young man. This Nameless Mummy was donated to Bolton Museum  in the 1920s – until then, he had been decorating a lady’s drawing room. At some point in the past, he became separated from his name.

The Nameless Mummy. Image © Bolton Museum

The first thing to leave me is the light. The sun sets and does not rise again. Anubis, God of the Dead, presses his muzzle to mine and sucks the air from my lungs. Slathers the glue of his tongue across my lips and seals them.

With knives, embalmers prise me open and fillet all my secrets. They pluck the flower of my stomach, unravel the ropes of my gut, drain the goblet of my stomach. Shrivel them in salt and pack them in jars stoppered with the heads of beasts. They swaddle my limbs in finest linen, trim my nails with gold, shutter my eyelids with lapis lazuli. I am perfumed with myrrh and sandalwood, anointed with oil of cedar.

Nothing is left to chance: a jar of honey to sweeten slumber; little men patted from mud to answer each command; a book of magic rolled tight beneath my chin. See: the gods’ names are spelled right, and on the scales of Truth and Damnation my heart swings in perfect balance with a feather.

I lie quiet. Wrapped in long sleep, dreams shed their leaves. I remember the mouth of my lover tasting of dates, the laughter of friends, the scent of wine and bread. And always, the song of my name to gather memories together.

Light breaks through the door. Welcome Ra! I cry, rubbing sticky eyes. I am here, Father! I stretch out my arms, but thieves shred my bandages, fumbling for gold. They tear away my jewelled collar, rip out the amulets, steal the ointments. Smash the pots they cannot carry, splay beer across the floor. The sand sups on my spillings. I am a shattered house, door kicked in by bandits when the master is gone.

I cling to prayer. But with the turn of centuries, the language of my people fades. With no-one to remember, the words that keep flesh moored to soul snuff with a hiss. I live with echoes. All I have is my name. I bind it tight around me, a cloak to warm against the ice of non-existence. The offering table heaps with rubble. Dust chokes my tomb. It is a kind of peace. A hundred years pass. A thousand. I lose count.

Light flares again. I am unshovelled. Hauled out by new hands that pick clean what the thieves forgot: a scrap of gold leaf here, twist of papyrus there. They strip my bandages, toss me into a cart like a heap of sticks.

I see my name flutter and flap away, a bird with a snapped wing. I cry out after it, but my tongue is wood and clacks inside my mouth. I am a hollow pot; a bag of dried meat, a rag tossed on the ash-heap. My memory is mud that cracks in the dry season. I have no brine for weeping.

Without the lamp of my name to guide me, how may I pass safe through the pitch dark of Amduat and come forth by day? How can I stand before the gods, when I don’t know who I am? How can I swear to The Devourer I committed no sin, if I don’t know what I did?

I am shipped north, across the Great Green and further, to a country where the water turns to stone. Propped in the corner of a room, strangers gawp at my nakedness. I hear voices, but they lack meaning; see faces, but know not who they are. I have no anchor to what I am, or have been. What am I without the story of my name?

Then I am laid in this new sarcophagus; honoured with a Pharaoh’s tomb far greater than my first. Around me drift pale creatures, breath ghosting the window of my coffin. I hear them whisper through the glass. The names they call me! Ugly, skinny, chopfallen. They call me Yorick, Old Boney, Rawhead and Bloody Bones. Call me Spindle-shanks, Skellington Joe, Rumpelstiltskin, Mr Cabbage-Knees. Call me Ginger John, Jackrabbit. Call me Al-nahifu, Al-qabihu, Al-nahilu. Koroi ‘Yuurei, Shin’dai-sha. Hasslich, Dunner Mann, Denti di coniglio, il Duce.

Insults? Pah! What are words when I’ve been gutted, robbed, split open, tossed about like trash! I am still here, and centuries of peril have made me cunning. Come, I say: lean closer. Give me everything you have.

I take their words and patchwork a coat of many names. New for old, to flesh these bones. See, how I grow fat. I had one name. Now I have a hundred and a hundred more. More than any man; more than the gods themselves.

Come Amun! Spindleshanks is calling. Come Isis! Yorick summons you. Come Hathor, Nephthys, Osiris! Al-Nahifu is waiting. Attend me, Horus! Approach, oh Set, oh Sobek! Il Duce desires your attention. Hear me, gods! Raise high the banners, sound the trumpets! Rub perfume into my limbs, clothe me in perfect garments, cast palm leaves beneath my feet. Breath flutters my nostrils. Laughter swells my lungs. My night sky is sheafed with new constellations. The man of many names is crossing to the West. Prepare the feast! I have a thousand mouths, and I am hungry.

Rosie Garland is a novelist, poet and sings with post-punk band The March Violets.

With a passion for language nurtured by public libraries, her work has appeared in Under the Radar, The North, Mslexia, Ellipsis, Rialto & elsewhere. The Times has described her writing as “a delight: playful and exuberant”.

Find out more about Rosie: www.rosiegarland.com

Find out more about the exhibition at Bolton Museum here.

This digital piece has been commissioned as part of our Arts Council funded Let The Artists In! project, which aims to connect artists and audiences with the collections in museums, libraries and archives in new and exciting ways. Explore our other digital commissions here.

Tania Hershman is the author of three short story collections and two books of poetry, has a PhD in creative writing inspired by particle physics, and is working on a hybrid book about time.

Hear her read more of her work on https://soundcloud.com/taniahershman. Website: www.taniahershman.com

This digital piece has been commissioned as part of our Arts Council funded Let The Artists In! project, which aims to connect artists and audiences with the collections in museums, libraries and archives in new and exciting ways. Explore our other digital commissions here.

Joe was inspired by the books in the Portico’s collection which attempt to examine, understand or debunk many nineteenth century practices and beliefs, in particular the act of speaking to the dead.

Ghost Machines is a five minute game which looks at a few twentieth century examples of ways that scientists, inventors and mediums have tried to use technology to contact the other side.

Please note: the game doesn’t work on Mac yet – so find a computer with Windows to download and play!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY

Take a look at her beautiful series of photos below.

Lydia was inspired by the sporting collections that First Draft performers have been exploring for our Everything To Play For event which takes place at the museum on Sunday 29 April. Tickets are still available – so book now if you want to see what out other amazing artists and performers have come up with!

Lydia says of her commission:

Find out more

Learn more about our project Let The Artists In!

Follow First Draft on Twitter or Facebook to hear about our next events

Isla was inspired by the sporting collections that First Draft performers have been exploring for Everything To Play For. We love how she has combined archive footage found elsewhere with the oral histories at Manchester Jewish Museum as a way of exploring imagination when hearing the accounts of others. There is also something fragile and transient in the overlaying and transparency of the images.

Watch here:

Isla focussed on the amazing oral history recording of Rosie Cohen. She says of her piece:

‘…the imagery captures the nature of vocal remembering; it’s glimpses and repetitions and over-layering of thought, and the processes of trying to communicate something someone else cannot understand or relive so the listeners image takes from the imagination or culturally familiar images…’.

Rick’s amazing new tracks were inspired by the diaries of Victorian teenager Dora Turnor, which are part of the collection at Chetham’s Library in Manchester. The diaries are also the focus of our event there, Nothing Stays Secret For Long, on Saturday 3rd March.

Listen here:

Rick on his commission:

“‘My Troubles’ explores themes of depression and sickness of Dora Turnor, despite the luxuries of being part of a wealthy family. The piece is broadly split into three sections:

Section A explores the obsession Dora appears to have with going or not going outside – many of her diary entries begin with a break down of her time outside in the preceding days or weeks.

Section B is based around a phrase fleshed out from Dora’s line “My troubles are only imaginary”, which points towards low moods, and feelings of guilt about feeling this way.

Section C contains a direct extract from some of Dora’s more difficult times.

The pieces uses a mixture of orchestral instrumentation and manipulated vocals to provide a snapshot into Dora Turnor’s more troublesome times.”

Find out more

Hear more from Rickerly

Take a look at our first digital commission inspired by the Dora Turnor diaries – photography and video by Mark Mace Smith

Learn more about our project Let the artists in!

Find out more about our SOLD OUT event Nothing Stays Secret For Long at Chetham’s Library on Saturday 3rd March