Four Poems by Write Out Loud's Greg Freeman

Greg Freeman lives in Byfleet, and is a former newspaper sub-editor, and now the news and reviews editor for the poetry website Write Out Loud. His debut pamphlet collection, Trainspotters, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2015.

He co-runs a monthly open mic poetry night in Woking, Surrey. He watched the second half of England's World Cup drubbing against Germany in a pub in Ludlow with the-then poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy; and with hundreds of others, contributed vocals on Chuck Berry's no 1 hit, My Ding-A-Ling.

He has recently published two pamphlet collections of his poems, Marples Must Go and The Fall of Singapore.

Greg Freeman - Poet

 

CHAGRIN FALLS

A suburb of Cleveland, Ohio,
of four thousand souls
that takes its name from the river
that runs through its heart.

The town and its waterfalls
are referenced in a song
by Canadian rock band
The Tragically Hip. 

I’ve never been there,
and I guess I never will,
which is a matter
of some regret.  

Give half a chance
I’m sure I would have loitered
in the Fireside Book Shop,
with its three floors of books.


MEETING SIMON ARMITAGE

It wasn’t exactly a coincidence:
we were heading in the same direction.
Slightly stooped figure, rucksack
on his shoulder, just ahead of me.
I thought at once: That’s him.

The future laureate was startled
to be accosted by this looming stranger
on a traffic island in the centre
of Winchester, but after clarifying
that he didn’t mind his picture 

being taken at the festival, we fell into step
and conversation, and I mentioned
– and this was a coincidence –
that I’d be in Marsden
the following morning, at an open-mic 

at the Railway inn. One of my regular
drinking haunts, he reminisced. 
The ice was well and truly broken.
Just at that moment we reached
the festival steps, and he was whisked 

away by the director, where he spoke later
of his poems engraved into Pennine
rocks, and how they might last there
for a thousand years, if there was
still people there to see them … 

Time, gentlemen, please.
The kind of bloke you’d share
a beer with down the pub.
Sadly I never got to ask:
What are you having, Simon?

FRAMLINGHAM

I sing of a castle (and so has
Ed Sheeran, as it happens).
Built by one of William’s
Normans, King John’s knights

lay siege, capturing it
In just two days, the year
after he caved in
and signed Magna Carta. 

Bloody Mary sought refuge there,
rallying troops and her confidence,
before heading to London
to claim the throne, and seal
the fate of a teenage girl.
The people cheering the rightful heir
didn’t foresee the martyrs.
Perhaps they did, and didn’t care. 

Next century a benefactor
purchased the thirteen towers,
flint curtain wall and Tudor chimneys;
ordered in his will that the buildings
within be levelled, a workhouse
constructed in their place.
These days the ‘Fairtrade town’
is known locally as ‘Fram’. 

The mere has shrunk
since the Middle Ages.
Jackdaws patrol the jagged stones,
a patchwork of history
stitched together once more
by English Heritage; jigsaw puzzle
of ascendancies, misfortunes,
triumphs, fatal falls from grace.

BACK AT THE MATCH
after Philip Larkin

The beckoning floodlights
still work their magic,
early October’s comforting chill,
scarf snug round the neck.
Blood pulses through arteries,
moving as it should. Heart lifts
with every step towards the stadium. 

An old pal texts me from
another game up north.
The name rings a bell.
He’s at a club where my job
was to phone over a few pars
for the Saturday Pink
from a kiosk outside the ground. 

Games that I didn’t give a toss about,
dictated to a bored copy taker,
wishing I was somewhere else,
roaring my own team on to promotion.
But then, I remember Larkin’s sigh:
it wasn’t the place’s fault I didn’t care.
A goalless draw can happen anywhere. 

The cover of Greg's latest poetry collection,
The Fall of Singapore