The Stairwell

by Jen Marks

Albert stared at the button at the side of the lift door. Instead of a green light shining from the up and down arrow there was just a dull grey. He pressed it hopefully and waited for the welcome whirring which would indicate movement in the lift shaft. Silence.

“Not again!” He looked down at his four bags of shopping. He bent over to pick them up again and felt the handles strain under the weight of his weekly supplies. A frozen leg of lamb spilled out of the Tesco “Bag for Life”. As he balanced it between the handles, on top of the boxes of ‘Value’ Cornflakes and washing powder Albert pondered the name; Bag for Life. Whose life? Was the plastic carrier going to outlive him? He reckoned he probably had about seventy odd year’s head start on it.

He had long since lost count of the times he had been forced, courtesy of the broken lift, to climb the stairs to his flat on the fourteenth floor in the fifty two years he had lived there. He bent his arthritic knees, hooked his twisted fingers around the handles and straightened with a small groan.

At the foot of the stairs Albert paused briefly, looking up at the ceiling where the fluorescent bulb flickered, its plastic shade full of dead flies. He rested his left elbow on the handrail in order to balance himself as he endeavoured to make sure that the bag did not crack him on the knee as he climbed the steps. As he neared the top of the first flight of stairs to the first floor, the familiar stench of urine hit him. He tried to close his nose off to it but even when he breathed through his mouth he could still taste it. He knew it was no good trying to hurry. If he was lucky he would make it up the 166 steps in less than ten minutes.

Albert continued his climb, pausing briefly on level seven. He looked through the cracked window and thought that he probably needed new spectacles as he could barely see the block of flats opposite. Albert tutted at his own stupidity as he realised that the window was filthy and that was the reason he could not see properly. He sighed and set off again, this time resting his right elbow on the rail and winced as the sharp edge of a box prodded him in the leg, just to the right of the shin bone. That would be another bruise to add to his ever growing collection.

He heard a door slam on the floor above and heard footsteps running along the landing. The stairwell door burst open just ahead of him. Albert flattened himself against the handrail as a young man, dressed in black, loomed towards him. His face was hardly visible beneath his hat, which was pulled down below his ears and over his eyebrows. He did not even appear to notice the terrified old man as he raced down the stairs two steps at a time.

Albert looked at the stairwell door. ‘Floor 8’. He took a deep breath and tried to shut out memories that were flooding back to him. He continued. ‘Floor 9.’ He looked up at the small landing between floors nine and ten. That was where it happened the first time. He remembered the flash of the blade. He remembered the blood trickling down the stairs. He remembered the shouts of “Help me! Please, help me!” His memory was dimming, but that night he could remember as if it was only last week. Help hadn’t come for several hours. By then, Albert’s first victim had bled to death.

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The Poem and the Poet: Inspired Beginnings & Unknown Ends

This week I’m cheating! Due to feeling tired, overworked and a little stressed, I’ve decided to post something I wrote 2 years ago. The piece I’ve chosen is taken from my undergraduate dissertation, which attempted to blend the creative with the academic through Poetics – and argued against the assumption that Creative Writing is a ‘soft option’.

The Poem and the Poet: Inspired Beginnings & Unknown Ends

The Poet does not know how the poem will look; she has no expectation or assumption. She lets the poem be what it wants to be - not forcing it into being.

It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. [...] It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, [...] but in a momentary stay against confusion. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood – and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for last. It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad.
(Robert Frost, 'The Figure a Poem Makes', 1939)*

On paper it begins to exist with the first line. The poem is no longer a mere idea that might get lost in a crowd of life’s distractions, or a thought that gets thrown hastily into one of mind’s drawers and never retrieved. It moves from a condition of abstraction – memory, thought, feeling, imagination, creativity – and adopts a physical, more permanent form. The abstract is transformed by a line of words, making it more difficult to lose or forget that moment of “delight”. The first line is powerful; it is the beginning that will lead the Poet to an end, and it is the tone – the voice – that the poem speaks and will continue to speak on each consecutive line.

And just “Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting” (Frost, 1939); the first line is the hand that places the ice on the stove and enables the melting to occur.

The Poet does not plan the poem’s line breaks by counting syllables; a line is not a stack of pennies and a verse is not a collection of five and seven pence towers. At times there is no need to count out value because the poem holds the potential to subconsciously calculate its own worth... If it is given the autonomy to do so.

The Poet does not dictate a rhyme upon the poem’s ends in order to form a scheme of alphabetical echoes.

“a-a-b-b-c-c-d-d-e-e...” does not drone or befell the form today...

...it did not want to. Thus, she applied no pressure.

The Poet is not dictator but writer. She listens to thought, to idea, to words, to sound. She is not a prophet but a messenger, who cannot see the end nor predict it. She is the owner of a pen, and its metal surface is void of apparitions that depict the future or foresee the unknown. The Poet surrenders to the now and accepts that the next cannot be hypothesised about, but rather she must write towards it. With each line and passing verse the unseen end steps closer to being visible – to the state of now – and eventually, the Poet falls upon it...

...THE END.

Thank you for reading,
Lar

_________________
* In: Gioia, D., Mason, D. & Schoerke, M. eds. Twentieth-Century American Poetics: Poets on the Art of Poetry. (New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, p.11-12)

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The final (interactive) line

I've always enjoyed having the last word. It gives me a challenge at work (where stubborn pensioners often fight back for it, I should add) and, obviously, something to wind people up with.

I can't help myself a lot of the time, it just sort of flows out.

"See you,"

"Yeah, Thank You,"

"Bye then"

"See you soon"

"Do you want the door open or closed?

"Open is fine thanks, bye,"

"Bye for now."

"Cheers... Bye."

I consider this a win. I don't know if the pensioners know about my little game, but these closing exchanges have gone on past the rather pushy 3 or 4 turns each before now. Like I said, I can't help myself.

With that useless little titbit about me safely stowed in your minds, I'll get on with this week's blog post. As ever, we're on a new week, new theme and it was my turn to pick it again. We're running with 'The Final Line' for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I find it the hardest line of a poem to ever write (despite regularly writing it mid-way through the idea). It must have poise, it must have punch, it must sound 'proper'. The other reason is that I was really struggling for both an idea and a guest blogger: Lara (girlfriend, Tuesday's blogger) bailed me out again with suggestions.

For me then, the final line can carry a poem. It can make that lasting impression on a reader and can shift the entire mood of a piece. As with a twist in a story, a twist in a poem is right up my street. Similarly with a good ending, something strong or in-keeping with the rest of the poem that still packs enough of a punch. Consider Kipling's 'If'. A hugely popular bit of back and forth that has had more essays written on it than I care to imagine. All of the critiques aside though, isn't it the final line that makes it? Can you even remember many more lines? I'm not going to pretend I know enough about the individual features of the poem to go into depth- go somewhere else for that but, as a point on how important endings are, I think it works.

This is something that I have been trying to work into my own poetry for the last couple of years. I like the shock factor as you already know. I particularly like closure. I like shifts in tone that knock you back a little. I like stupid half rhymes and quips. It may be my concentration but honestly, there is nothing doing for me in a waffling poem that goes on for three pages plus. I'd go as far as to say that if you aren't somebody I know in person, I'm never going to bother. I must have owned a copy of Howl for three years now- it is still too long for me to get into it. Something short though, say 'Digging' and you're talking my language. Strong throughout, evocative, powerful and tidy on a page- with a good final line- tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, I like...

On that note then, I'll leave you with a little task for this week. The power of a final line is not to be doubted. It moves poems full circle sometimes and can have a devastating effect. Naturally, I should follow this with a quiz about famous last lines and set you all off naming poems. I'm not online and I'm not at home though, so neither of these are going to happen (since my memory is shocking). Instead, you can have a few possibilities for a poem I'm going to write for the Blackpool book. How should I end it guys... Most votes by tomorrow, I'll go with it.

1. On the day we no longer need you.

2. Could all have something to do with it.

3. The bureaucracy, bitches and bling.

4. Goodnight Blackpool, sleep tight.

5. But you won't ride a donkey on Fridays.

P.S. Consider this a gentle reminder for submissions. Submission details are on the facebook page (available here) but you need them in by the end of this week!

Keep on writing,

Shaun

;)

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