Escape Attempt by Mary Pullen

Inspired by ‘the lake behind the flats’
Am I an island? workshop

In the darkness I am treading water in the middle of the lake.

The dark depths surrounding me are pushing against my flailing limbs.
I struggle in vain, unable to move in any direction.

Lights come on, one by one, lighting up the facades of the buildings on the water’s edge, and like Christmas tree lights they illuminate the subtle hues of the dawn sky.

Still I struggle; kicking, arms beating the water, painful breath escaping.

Heavy curtains are drawn wide, revealing detailed lives beyond the window panes.
In bright rooms I see the elderly, the young, lone parents and families and with each glance out over the lake in the brightening day, my hope increases. In vain I hope of salvation.

A glance becomes a stare, harsh and cold. Eyes squint, attempt to focus, looking at me, directly in the eye. Then heads turn away and I am alone…..

Ghost of the Dome by Mary Pullen

As the evening draws in and the fading sun begins to set, I watch the crowds emerge like tiny ants, swarming from a cold, underground and soulless place. I do not know from where they have come, but I know well to where they go. With tunes on their lips and light hearts these crowds tread heavy and unthinking over my life.

I am the ghost of the peninsular that was, that sadly is no more. I am the busy communities, rich market gardens, the regular terraced cottages, and harsh docklands. My song is dedicated to the memory of people and places now long gone. For them, I play my tune.

Competing with street sounds, pounding music, loud voices, I am the fierce wind in the night and I play the taught cords of the Dome’s high points as a harp, making joyous sounds, creating sonic harmony as a challenge to any lyrical trend.

From on high, I see people look up, drawn from their reveries by the celestial notes of my symphony. Plucking, bending and vibrating the steel, my chords play the tune of my life and I live again.

Shock by Aoife Mannix

Out on the edge of the peninsula
where the ships are sliced thinly,
the pirates dance their goodbyes,
warning of homecomings,
the fickle nature of ghosts.
We search for sunken treasure
at low tide, lucky pennies, glass bottles
with maps inside, a hook for a sail.
The river is the blood of the city,
we are the salmon come full circle.

The sky line a pearl necklace cast into space.
You reel me in with rocket ships,
giant clocks, a bowl turned upside down.
The echo of funerals as if all losses
hold her name. Stumbling in the church,
moments of unbalance. Leaping from
pillar to post, I fall into your arms.
Catch me if you can.

I am all the people I used to be,
a Russian doll splintered open.
I haunt myself with the future,
toy airports, minor turbulence.
I get lost wandering along the highway
with the trucks wearing eye patches.
I’m choking on public hangings,
prison marshes, what lies
at the bottom of the Thames.

Please ignore my wooden limbs,
my parrot phone calls, my default mode.
I know it’s not always easy to read
my Morse code, but I only ever meant
to hold your hand. My fear of drowning
is second only to my fear of silence.
There are still bridges,
connections to the mainland,
our seashell collection, all those promises
that have yet to be found.

No point in fighting a current by Fiona Moore

You can’t step into the same river twice
and you wouldn’t step into this one at all
to join the flotsam and jetsam, floating along
at fast walking speed – plastic bottles, planks,
green skins of algae mirrored by their own shadow,
here a trail of bubbles as if something small’s
drowned. It would diminish you, this cold river
rippling like muscle along its vast course, squeezing
the narrow land with its coils, it would reduce
you to a raised arm, a head camouflaged
by river brown / grey-blue reflected sky,
to a shout dampened by the water.

Low tide by Fiona Moore

You could step over
the barrier, but no.
This is not a beach
but an exhibit. Here
are the concrete uplands,
barren and windswept,
split by stream-bed cracks
where sorrel grows like rust
and hawkweed’s gone to seed.
Below are the foothills,
a bright green slime-coated
rubble bank that runs down
into shingle and junk –
a city of slums lapped
by brown water under
girders reaching skywards.
The exhibit shows
how waves will come in and
cover everything.

Greenwich Peninsula by Fiona Moore

This is where the limbic brain takes over,
moves into flight/fight mode between land and water.
Anything could happen round the next corner.

It’s like waking up on a desert island –
alone in a space wider than consciousness
is used to, wider than a city, all thoughts
washed up at this landscape of concrete, girders,
wooden piles, silos and jetties all dug in
against the river’s pressure, landscape
full of cracks with vegetation growing through,
landscape locked up and cut off by walls and wire.

Black pigeons flap among mud at low tide.
So much washed up but no-one else here
in this foreland that’s turned to hinterland.
Numbered red signs explain how to call for help,
using a cold war vocabulary of sectors.
A yellow triangle says to beware strong currents
(someone has added, ‘and angry raisin’s’).
The path is hemmed in by walls and the river.

This is where the limbic brain takes over,
moves into flight/fight mode between land and water.
Anything could happen round the next corner.

A visit to the hoardings with signwriter Leo Ulian

Sugar 6

We could go for a walk together some day, you and me. I’ll show you the secret places, if you ask right. The empty space behind the hoardings in the square, where grass creeps up between stones, and buddleia blooms pink amongst the grey. The field behind Sainsbury’s where the skylarks sing.

We’ll reach down and touch the grass, crunch leaves between our fingers to find out what green smells like. There are treasures on the beach if you take the time to look. If you’re not the kind of person who likes talking, we can just sit and listen. The barges sound like thunder. The boats sound like bells. There are birds that’ve flown half way across the world to be here.

Some wishes for the Greenwich Peninsula

Drop-in creative day, Greenwich Millennium Village, 27th Oct

A Smashed Tile, by Fran Smitheran

Who smashed the tiles off the wall beside the front door? Once there were tiles all the way up both sides of the front door and the pictures on the tiles were full of action: the wind blowing the sails on the sailing ships, waves lapping the hulls of the ships, and flying fish! There’s a mustard-coloured pennant at the top of the mast in the only bit of tiling that’s left. I wish the rest of the scene with its touches of colour had survived.

The row of houses with the pub at the end, down past the new fountains, is still standing. Perhaps the smashed-up tiling came from another row of houses nearby. Are the foundations still there, beneath Greenwich Millennium Village? Will there be anything for Time Team to discover if they decide to take a look? An old key perhaps?

The key to the teacaddy. Tea was expensive. The caddy was locked to keep the precious contents safe.

The key was lost. A woman lost the key. She wasn’t the mistress of the household, that was Mrs Sidney. This woman was a trusted servant, her name was Ellen Matthews. She was distraught that she had lost the key.

How had she lost the key? Ellen had carefully locked the teacaddy and was on her way to return the key to Mrs Sidney. Something gave Ellen such a shock that she dropped the key and couldn’t find it.

What was the thing that shocked Ellen so completely? Was it the arrival of somebody from her past that she had never expected to see again? Perhaps Ellen had always been told that her older sister had died before she was born and here was a woman claiming to be her sister, telling Ellen the story of the forty years of life since Ellen was born, none of which Ellen recognised because it was a separate life.

This really was Ellen’s sister, but a thing like that doesn’t resolve itself in an instant.

27.10.08

Gasometer

Pine needles/snowdrops. Fresh earth new shoots.
New rain barren trees. Cotton candy.
Coke float. Tamarind.
Mangos. Honey. Apple pie.
Jerk chicken. Mississippi mud pie.
Calamari and salad. Mousaka, boats.
Monkfish. Rice and peas.
Maple leaves. Moody.
Running hot and cold. Vegetable soup.
Changeable omelettes, Spanish style.
Hibernation hedgehog. Slugs.
String quartet. Wind whistling through a hollow tree
Snowflakes falling. Children’s laughter in snow fights.
Ice hockey player scraping the ice.
Security, sense of belonging.
Warmth, family, music.
Things, heat, enclosed space.
Home cinema, talking whispers, belly laughs.
Pride, garden, front door locked.
Fence. Glass (loads).
Space, south facing, white empathy belly.

Vision in the noon day sky

Vision in the noon day sky, not a flap as he goes by.
Kaleidoscopic vision but he spies me.
Down and down he dives towards me,
a source of food he does seek, not me, matie, not this week.

My escape is helped by this vision in black,
stealth and sleek with a hunting track,
as a paw lashes out there he springs too late…
Into the water no turning back.

Dragonflies buzzing all around me,
their rainbow wings do astound me.
I spot a hippo in mid flow
and gave a weak cry Miooooo.

A dolphin came to my rescue.

The cabbage patch – jetty

Smell like the seaside and gulls. Rough windy shore,
wet gravel shifting. Tropical coconuts and spice
tinged with ripe fruit. Hot tangy curry veg
with cous cous melting. Vanilla ice cream
and chocolate cake. Hot buttered toast fresh on the plate.

Warm rough breeze stroking my skin. Tingle of cold rain
on a hot day and the luxuriousness of a vast hot enough bath.
Electric rock music blasting loud and fearless.
The crackle of splintering ice cracking under foot,
heavy north winds stir up the bones
moving through clothes to play with flesh.

Home is the place to be, to shut down and sit,
to walk unobserved, to laugh aloud, alone, unquestioned,
to smile at the stars, to slink inside and sleep.

The Field

Sea wafts of saltiness. Flowers floral. Buddleia. Hops!
Freshness. Hyacinths. Strawberries-breakfast.
Citrus lightness/sharpness. Herbs.
Fresh young green beans, peas.
Golden, glowing. Soft and rippling.
Yielding. Warm. Comforting.
Enclosing/encompassing. Stillness.
Wind in the trees. Rustling grass
Low roar of cars punctuated by birdsong, planes.
Distant boat horns and whistles. Laughter.
Place of belonging, being oneself, at ease,
surrounded by objects of memory, recollections,
family, love, manifestation of me and aspirations.

I am the peninsula animal

Deep down lurks a massive serpent coiled in London, shell shape is the peninsula. It’s ripples move through the earth. Silent and hidden almost surrounded by water lapping at its edge. The lightness of the dragonfly cuts through the smell of Norfolk burning the nose with each break. Slowly surely the beast is poked and prodded by technology, land grabbers dig out her lair. The birds of the sky look on silently hovering on the movement. Stirring takes place. Movement shuffles off more cover, grass claims back some. Fish are called up the Thames by the ceaseless movement. The panther of time prowls around the edge eying newly incoming inhabitants. Long gone smells rise to the surface as music blasts from the dome. Deep down she stirs and shifts noiselessly.

A Different Perspective

Leaving Canary Wharf, brightness, over reflecting fast flowing water
to swoop to dark undergrowth – catch a sole. Rise up over bright lights – see the movement below – wagtails, magpies, and wood pigeon flee. Movement in the water draws me in, sounds of rustling in the undergrowth – shimmering shapes in the water lure me closer… mass of turning fish… in the clear chill of the air.

People move towards my hidden lair in the tree tops, urban fox flees from them in arrogant slowness, heading for the park and discarded food…

Stillness of the path hides the activity of the day; the flitting dragonflies, frogs and insects hidden in the shadows of night.

This is the weathercock of London by Roy Collins

This is the weathercock of London
this thumb of land pointing into the Thames. The river weaves around this almost island sharply
a peninsula with the power of earth to change tides,
catch the wind full blast
and sore the skin. Birds flock its shores
scavenge the tidal mud for food and curios
fly inland for safety when black clouds thunder
and the giants of Canary Wharf stalk the sky.

But was it always there? What bedrock
bent the flow of water? The records recall
a marshy land flooded by tides
a treacherous area somehow reclaimed into pasture
by those who knew how water could be tamed.

Today a different reclamation rescues the land
the ravages of industry, its poisons and decay removed,
and as life returns re-strengthened by its absence
a new community is born on concrete and bricks
and at the Point a dome whose spider derricks
held a Millennium of fun and celebration
unlike the hanging cages along the water-line
that swayed with corpses of would-be pirates
whilst further away king and parliament fought
with bloody resolution a battle of ideas
civil rights and freedom.

Waiting

It’s late to be coming round, knocking on people’s doors; still I’ve nothing to do but wait, so it’s no bother.

The dark kind of caught up with you, you say? That happens come autumn, doesn’t it? Dusk’s always been my favourite time of day. Noon is always noon, never mind how long the day is, but dusk shifts around; you’re never quite sure where its edges are.

You want to know what I think? About this place? Why’s that then?

There was a time this place didn’t exist, you know. You’d go underneath it, through the tunnel, but otherwise everything skirted round – cars, buses, people. Later on, you could sneak through the fence, stand in the mud and watch them building. They didn’t seem care about you being there. Not like now. These days it’s harder to squeeze through the gaps, though that might be my age. There are more uniforms, and more danger signs. I guess it’s all that health and safety. People didn’t use to bother so much.

I’m not so sure it exists now, even with all of us on it, and the village and the park and that football place. Even with the Sainsbury’s and the car parks and the school. What do I mean? I just mean it’s the kind of place that keeps changing; it slips out of reach soon as you try to touch it. It’s the river that does it. What’s the saying, you can never stand in the same river twice? Something like that. Apparently the land between low tide and high tide belongs to the queen. Anything you find there – bits of rope and rusty nails, broken pottery and unlabelled video tapes – it’s all hers. That would make me feel queasy, owning something that only half existed.

They think I’m a witch. I guess they’ve told you that already. The woman who sits at her window, looks at the river, and waits. I guess they want to find a story to fill up a space. It’s not like I’ve got bunches of herbs hanging from my kitchen walls. It’s not like I’ve got some bank of knowledge they can’t understand. Maybe it’s because I live out here, on the curve of the river, on my own. Maybe it’s because I walk at night, round behind the dome to the moonscape on the other side, with its graffitied concrete cylinders, its chemical smells, its floodlit, dirty machinery. Maybe it’s because I’ll play in the leaping fountains in front of the screen and not bother about the guards with their blue jackets and frowns. Maybe it’s because I like to wear strings of colours around my neck, and curl my hair into a cascade of grey on the top of my head. Maybe it’s because I laugh too loud. Who knows.

I used to be an actress. Perhaps that’s why I moved here, for the theatre of it. I don’t go to the concerts in that place, but I sit by the wall with its plants clinging on for dear life and the water whispering behind me, and I watch the crowds pour from the tube, along the walkway – their bodies mirrored upside down in the glass above them – into the gaping mouth of the dome. I stay there until everyone has been swallowed up, except for the security guards who stamp their feet, hug their arms around their bodies, fix their eyes on the white walls and imagine what’s inside.

I remember the hush in the theatre just before a performance, just before the curtain lifted, redrawing the line between here and there. I remember the feel of thick make-up over every inch of my face, staring in the mirror at a different version of myself. I remember the squeeze of a corset, the rub of borrowed shoes, the odd weight of a wig. It’s a funny thing, acting. You take a chunk of time out of the real world, lay it on a velvet pillow, treat it like something precious.

And afterwards? What do you do with yourself afterwards? When you’ve wiped off the make-up and changed back into the jeans you bought in the January sales? That’s why I left in the end, I started looking in the mirror and not knowing if it was me or someone else.

Sometimes I’ll come back at the end of a concert and take my seat on the far side of the square. The audience stream in a moving, bubbling arc, back towards the underground. Their feet don’t see the silver words beneath them. I have a pocket watch for telling space. 1924 – pip,pip,pip… They don’t know that behind the curved hoardings, with their pictures of multicoloured faces and famous pop songs, there is an empty space, where grass creeps up between stones and buddleia blooms pink amongst the grey. They don’t know that if they cut a hole an inch thick they wouldn’t be in the same place. You can’t dig deep here. There’s nowhere to go.

The women totter on thin heels, their hands grip others’ arms, men’s, usually, but not always. None of them notice me, there’s no reason why they should. I sit and listen to the ebb and swell of their voices, the rhythm of their feet across slabs of stone. I wait until they’re all gone before I head back home.

Look, it’s properly dark now. Pretty isn’t it? All those lights across the water like boiled sweets. Peaceful too. It’s like being in a bubble, walking round here at night, like there’s some kind of protective film between you and the rest of the world.

You’ve got to go? It’s a shame that, I was enjoying talking to you. There’s not so many people interested in an old woman everyone thinks is a witch. What do I think it’ll be like? In twenty years, in fifty years, in a hundred? Didn’t I tell you I was waiting? We all are.

A Walk on the Greenwich Peninsula, by Lichtenstein Class 3 at Millennium Primary School

We went for a walk on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Tell me, what did you see?
A squirrel, a plane, and some shimmering shells,
Prickly grass, and brown and white stones,
The blurry reflections of colourful houses,
The perfect river flowing, moorhens swimming.
A bus, a swan, a beautiful dog.
We saw the sky.

We went for a walk on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Tell me, what did you smell?
Leaves fresh as green apples, sharp as mint.
Seaweed from the sea,
Dark green water,
We smelt the cool fresh air.

We went for a walk on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Tell me, what did you hear?
Crackling, crumpling, rustling leaves.
The sound of a plane, a sound like a bell.
A bike cycling very gently
The brumming of cars
The engines of boats
The whooshing of buses.
The splashing of ducks’ flippers
Crashing waves
We heard our own footsteps.

We went for a walk on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Tell me, what did you feel?
The barriers tingling our fingertips,
The concrete hard on our feet,
The breeze, the soft leaves, the smooth silver poles
The grass, a stone and a shell.
We felt warm, laughing, brilliant, happy.

Return of the Species, by Oona Chantrell

Return of the Species

They started as a trickle

then a stream

a tidal wave turning from the sea

Lumpsucker, Mitten Crab, Common Salt Snail

all the scale and skin creatures inching home again

Roach, Rockling, Herring Sprat

swimming up the Estuary to see the London lights

Sea Reach to Deptford Creek

swelling by the mile

Greenwich Reach is nile-blue under blue sky.

Bottom feeders start to feel the warmth on their backs

green-eye Tench, silver Eel, muddy little Dabs

and deep asleep once more in Bugsby`s Hole

a single queen Salmon quivering her tail.

Greedy gulls come flocking too

for the evening fry

Yellow-legged and Black-backed and cruel

Arctic Skua, sickle wings slicing up sky

like City spivs high

in Canary Wharf Tower

spinning, wheeling, dealing.

Yet all the passing species -

men, birds, fishes

leave no lasting memory in water.

Sweet river, Father Thames

ever old, ever new

wipes away the traces

of them, of me, of you.


Oona Chantrell, October 2008

Woolwich Barrier, by Oona Chantrell

Woolwich Barrier

The Thames Barrier`s monkish cowls

nod the boats through upstream downstream

obedient as wind-up toys.

Silently measuring channels of tide

under arches where waters divide

while fish devoutly dip and rise

to the ring of distant buoys.

When London`s threatened by the flood

these saving gates will pivot shut

- that`s good -

holding back the wall of tide

and God help those who live the Woolwich side.

Oona Chantrell, Oct 2008

No Man's Land (Sugar 5)

This place didn’t use to exist. Mum’s told me about it: how it was all boarded up, cut off from everywhere else. You used to drive past and not even think there might be something behind the fences, she said. Unless you were the kind of person who looked at maps, or happened to be on the other side of the river, looking across, you’d not know it was there. It was like a blind spot, she told me, you just didn’t see it. Later, when they started getting excited about the idea of that hedgehog of a building, people started noticing.

‘Don’t you remember?’ she asked, ‘That time we climbed under the fence?’ I was five she says, maybe even younger. Dad was still around. My brother wasn’t born yet.

‘The three of us, mud on our shoes, sneaking about like criminals, not that anyone seemed bothered we were there. Don’t you remember, looking at the dome, half made – like a skeleton coming out of the ground?’

I pretend to remember, because I’d like to. I stand on the tarmacked path and look through the blue mesh fence and I try to picture a tiny version of me, one of them on either side, holding my hands so I won’t fall. I try to take the white curve of the O2 away, to vanish the huge cylinders mum says have got something to do with ventilation. I try to see through the tarmac and the paving slabs to wet mud that would curl up around the soles of your shoes.

riding the timeline by Marina Collins

an open sky, a swerve of fresh green saplings
we guide our bikes along the wooden track
a scattering of breadcrumbs reeds and bushes
convenient takeaway for
urban ducks

the buildings slowly edge back from erosion
they’re on the lookout for the next Thames splurge
jet whines, set free from London city airport
repeats the flight line of a
soaring gull

will heron nest on sculpted Man’s right shoulder
in chinks of sky caught up in crocheted wire?
and will the stranded blank eyed apparition
wait hopelessly for lighthouse
to wink back?

perhaps the rusting chunk of what was coaster
may well provide a rest for peregrine
but juddering frame signals a change in surface
and eyes and minds are brought back
down to earth

the pathway drifts, shudders of bricks and cobbles
through beery whiffs, nose prickling acid stench
and on past sickly scented coats of varnish
so sweet it makes you gag for
Thameside air

we leave behind the remnants of old workmates
their lives displayed as fading artefacts
then finally roll homewards, no more rubble
with tarmac smoothing out the
potholed past

Entrances (Sugar 4)

I can get in any of those doors. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not a criminal. And no, I won’t tell you how.

You’re missing the point. I want to tell you about entrances. You open a door, shut a door, and you’re inside. That matters, don’t you think? I can only get through the first doors, the ones you need a card for rather than a key. And I think what I’m saying is that, even when you’ve opened and stepped through and closed those doors behind you, you’re not really inside. You’re in this kind of no-man’s land, with all these other doors leading off it.

There are the letter boxes, first off, tiny locked doors with numbers on them. Some of them are broken open. Some of them spill out paper, and you wonder does no one live in the flat that matches the box? Maybe they’re dead, or on holiday, and you hope that there is someone who knows which it is.

The number of boxes tells you how many doors there are which you can’t get into. The higher the number, the longer the walk. If you’re supposed to be there, then one of the doors will be yours, and once you’ve open and stepped through and closed that door, then you’re inside, then you’re home. If you’re like me, or the postman, or someone else without a key to go with the card, then there are just corridors and doors, lifts you can see your reflection in, and concrete stairs.

They are the kind of places where anything could happen. You might meet the person whose music seeps through your walls or ceiling or floor, and they might end up being the best friend you’ve ever had. You might open your post box and find a letter that’s the start of a whole new story. You might fall in love. You might decide that today is the day you’re going to change.

No Compass

No Compass
by Aoife Mannix

Suspended above the river,
the low thunder of barges banging
fills the evening with the ghosts of shipwrecks.
The art of reading treacherous currents,
how the sands change with the light,
sulphurous yellow, slate grey.
The remains of the city far in the distance,
fingers pointing up to heaven, a landmark inverted.

Will-o’-the wisp voyages, gas worker sailors.
Her grandfather dived to lay the Atlantic cable,
a string tying us to new worlds.
Telegrams sunk, lost communications,
the green rust of dark, dangerous, dirty labour.

The dream of a small rowing boat navigating
the Thames, the twists and turns of an urban skyline.
Contaminated history, how the mud can suck you under
quicker than you’d ever believe possible.
The mystery of names, signposts sighing in the rain,
the wind whistling orchestras through steel girders.

If you get lost out here, the water
will bring you back eventually.

Looking For The Dome… by John Ringrose

Looking For The Dome… by John Ringrose

We walked one Sunday to find the Millennium Dome
traversing zigzag turns
by the oily river.

Trudged round a far corner thinking
‘We must be near!’ and stopped:
for out on the water
six birds, like painted icons,
old as the walls of Egyptian tombs
sharp dagger beaks, black and white,
perched, shoulders hunched
on a weathered timber:
papyrus birds.

Leader on the top bulwark, three others below,
two, younger perhaps, speckled brown;
still, unmoving, looking up river.
Antique birds
presiding between
Canary Wharf and the incipient Dome.

We stared, we photographed; they remained
carved, immobile.
One stray wind rippled younger feathers.

And as we moved away a voice said, ‘Cormorants!’
‘Come from the coast,’ said another
‘Fish in the river now, then!’
‘Which they’ll thin out a bit!’
and their laughter faded on the wind.

On our way home we passed them again
black, angular, priestly, against the setting sun.
Ancient birds from the beginning of time
Bringing thought of hieroglyphs
lustrations, libations and sunburned gods:
Isis, Osiris, and he with a jackal head
by the oily Thames:
almost cleaner for their presence.

The Future Is A Strange Place by Claudette

The river runs fast at this point, sometimes too fast for the unwary. I was visiting my brother that day, coming all the way from Anglesea. London, that big city, so excited to be visiting after months of planning and waiting.

The mist of that November afternoon came in early. We walked too far out. I heard the voices, but the voices came through muffled. People shouting. I walked towards the noise. The tide was definitely coming in so I turned back and slipped into water. Black, cold, fearful water. No time to shout. I was surrounded and surrounded, over and under, nothing to hold, no one to call, no where to go, just me and black water. Oh the coldness of the water. I saw the ship arrive and they placed it over my head, half a ship. What’s this? Things have changed around here. The future is a strange place, they are now sailing in half boats.

People living on it. Maybe I can explore this when they get it off my head. The effort of getting free from the clinging cement mud, pulling me, sucking me back to stay put. One last effort and I can reach the boat’s bottom, I want to see what this half ship is about. I can talk to the people to warn them, and to ask them to please get this heavy thing off my head.

A personal map of the peninsula

Circular surgery with sculpture on display. Clean lines and no smell of death. Familiar faces welcoming and warm. A warren of rooms holding things in secret places. Memories of illness held in check, until, until. Blood tests, files, scales and prescriptions. Sharps boxes yellow to be disposed of. Magazines and faces wondering what’s behind them in waiting rooms.

Football at David Beckhams. Smelling of wet grass and fierce ambition, honed on tiny legs, striving, dreaming, playing, scoring. Images of stars framed in boxes and boots with names embroidered on in girly, touching variety. Shirts stained 7, with ambition signed, ‘to the kids at the academy’

School children. Woody frames and low rise building

Sainsburys, food, pharmacy, the pharmacist from France dispensing advice and support with an expert twist. Cold blank fridges full of things buy and buy again.

Cinema weekends and glimpses of other places. Mirrored hallways and badges declaring ‘favourite film: what’s yours?’ what’s mine? Popcorn smell and noisy eaters. Adverts and trailers connecting childhood memories of parents with memories being created for their children. Pearl and Dean : Ba ba ba ba baaaaar…

Alison, 01.10.08

More writing from drop-in workshops

Peninsula purpose, games that we create and tables that we lay, windows that darken as boilers chug. Stone unturned and turned to stone. Grey statues with mildewed hint of angels’ wings. Leaves around the base that hold the river in their folds. Flowing to a place, arcing its back to the sound of planes that flight away to light.

Practice what you preach, pray for what you need and nothing more. The circle on the ground that marks a beginning. Bright centre holds as we walk by, and wonder at what was there.

***

Rising up from the chamber of the tube. Taking moving steps two at a time. Reaching the light of the tube top. People watching to see who’s on tonight at the O2. Who are these people? What unites them? Goth wearing teenagers keeping ten paces behind protective dads taking them to their first gig.

And then outside, burgers till dawn at the single London Diner. Apeing Manhattan street style, but there is only one. And down past endless carparks, blanks space and hard core mats. Used to pay to park and go no further.

Alison, 01.10.08

Ghost Story by Sophie Hope

Tap, tap, tap, tap. No one there. I swim through the seaweed and old rope that entangles the anchor securing my home to the sea bed. I do a circuit about once an hour of the old trawler. This whole area has been deserted now for at least 100 years. Mine was one of the last boats to come through here, scouting for survivors after the great floods of 2050. We didn't make it back to the cruiser anchored out in the estuary. We went out in style though. I dived down to the infamous 'Millennium Dome' and managed to raid the store rooms - brought back stacks of beer and popcorn. Me and my shipmates gorged ourselves before shooting ourselves in the heads. It's silent now, the water lapping against the sides of my old trawler. I'll take another dive and see what lies beneath.

Balconies (Sugar 3)

I’ll let you into a secret, just so long as you don’t tell anyone. It’s about the balconies. If you laugh I won’t say and you’ll never know. It’s your call.

It’s strange to me how people don’t know this already, but then I guess most people don’t realise about magic.

You’ve got to pick a colour. Then you’ve got to find a flat with that colour and get onto the balcony. It’s easier than you’d think, but I couldn’t tell you how.

Red is for love.

Blue is for dreams.

Green is for travel.

Orange is for family.

I forgot to say, you’ve got to find a balcony where you can see the river, and that wooden thing with the twirly top. It won’t work otherwise.

And then it’s simple. You reach down both hands to touch the colour. You look at the spinning top and at the water, and you make your wish. Don’t expect a thunderbolt. Don’t expect something to happen straight away. Wishing’s a delicate business, my mum told me that. You’ve got to be patient. You’ve got to keep your heart and your eyes wide open. You’ve got to be prepared to wait.

A poem by volunteers at the ecology park

Greenwich Peninsula

I am reed warblers building invisible nests,
I am skylarks singing behind Sainsbury's,
I am the ecology park, kids loving to learn,
I am your smile as you cut back the willow.

I am the whispering of wind through the reeds,
I am the crash of barges and the honk of geese,
I am a bubble of calm on a walk through the park,
I am the river, the beginning and end of it all.

I am floodlit moonscape, alien landscape,
I am burning conveyor belts and rafts of rotten eggs,
I am your escape at the end of a miserable day,
I am old, I am new, I am always changing.

by volunteers at the ecology park, 08.10.08

2nd drop-in workshop, Wednesday 8th October

Please join us for the 2nd drop-in workshop on Wednesday 8th October, cottage number 82, River Way. 6.30-8.00pm

Future Peninsula

I’m looking for a bus stop. I’m guessing there’s one in 112 plant pots’ time. 112 square pots all the same, lined up like guards. No weeds. Ready to face the invisible army. Ten stone slabs to every marked pavement square. Ten pavement squares to every one minute of looking. No weeds. And how many more pavement squares to the bus-stop? To infinity? Hmmm, things to face in the war for the bus-stop … blinding light off faceless glass building; cloned surroundings, losing the will to live. Where am I?

Gera, 01/10/2008

Peninsula

In my head there’s a finger of land and it’s pointing outwards in the direction of water. It could be an admonition, a telling off, but it’s not so hard as that. Not stone. Not impenetrable. No, it’s more of a friendly pointing to something other, something beyond, something I don’t quite see yet.

I may not see, but I do hear. I hear the river just beyond the finger’s edge. It’s so near you could argue that it’s inside of me – a practised beat, a pulse of life that runs around and through and over, racing round the corner of my vision.

So, I’m inside this circle of land and sea: an equal part of the thrum of life; this bright living thing we all pay into.

Gera, 01/10/2008

the more it changes

Docklands the buildings heave and crowd
look down on
the gentler weathered shapes
across the water
well settled on their solid royal bases,
the dome a curve away
shifts slightly as it sinks
its nails into the moving sand
reminds us boats were tethered to this land

the Thames so silent now,
where once a world of ferrymen and sailors
peppered the sea breeze
with wild exotic curses
and scavengers scoured mudflats in their wake,
communication highway of its day
before the houses losing interest
turned imperceptibly
the other way

strange how this island
nearly but not quite
seems semi-permanent
as if in waiting for the crust to crack
the gas to flow
the Thames to take it back


Marina Collins 01/10/08