Project Type: Blog

The Saints by Rhys Lawrence

Star shaved into the fade of the lad
who holds the front door with two hands and a smile:
It’s our paintings on the walls
our pictures on the beermats
Click click clack – no studs inside!
striped and named and numbered backs
on the rugby club boys and football club girls
and football club boys and the rugby club girls
who line the wall of glassy sunlight that
warms them while they wait their turn at pool.
And young Johnny Ralfs from the City Farm
guides Nubian, pygmy and Guernsey goats
and chickens and pigs and Shetland sheep
through the bustle of prams and shaking hands
that’s just settling down for the tuning up band
along paths and through gaps cut by kids playing tag
to the front to buy strips in the raffle.
Racing on the telly today
but the room still pops in time with St Marys
when everyone’s phone at once vibrates or pings
and if you laid Milbrook Towers down
it’d be half as long as this bar and
we’d still be up here elbow to elbow:
jostling like memorabilia round the jukebox,
spying pals across the room and waving like
the carpet swirls back at the artex ceiling.

The Raven & Bine By Rhys Lawrence

Rainwater face on the head of a barrel,
Step from the tiled porch to a close friend’s dream:
Run your hand inside the jewellery box,
the varnished dado – cover the hoppy light that’s spiralling
from tabletop lamps to fairy lights, to filament bulbs and candles,
fixings and furnishings varnished to a glimmer
with damask crevices, amber walls and ceilings.
All types crowd along the pews
some recently regular, some just passing through
nursing their cloudy woolhouse brews
and living up to the wallpaper.
And couched in deep leather at the back of the saloon
Miss Archer and Miss Axtell are wary of the enlivening spirit
but the stained glass dulls the dark outside
and black broad windows ten yards off
return the light to the grotto where they’re together.
Eddie’s boy Sam has sketches and plans
for making sense of his dad’s lands
they’re building a crescent of lunar-white houses
and leaving space for a nice pub
Their mate Alex thinks he’s figured out
just how big the world is
they’re putting together a team for the quiz
huddling like the taps.
The ladies A. gaze knee-to-knee
at the shoulder-flush boys at the bar
sharing lamplit words about a future
older than the pigs on the wall.

The Mountbatten Arms By Jo Fisher

We’ve all got a story or seven in here.
Pull up a chair, and pull back your ears.
There’s something to learn from the folks who stop in
for five minutes’ peace, a laugh and a grin;
every day for a pint or a break or a chat,
for a moment to sit with a dog on their lap.

The brickies, the lads, the scaffolders too,
the old folk and young, all part of our crew.
They come looking for Dad; they know he’ll be here,
whiling away the day with a beer.
They come looking for company, to get out of the rain;
they come for nostalgia, to feel young again.

I’ve heard it all from my place at the bar.
We’re all bards and poets, performers and stars.
Telling a tale and setting the scene,
sharing the places and faces we’ve seen.
The wisdom, the jokes, the ups and the downs;
the actors, the speakers, the mimes and the clowns.

In the chaos of life, and the swiftness of time,
we’re here for them all: at their worst, in their prime.
It’s the people that make us, the love and the loss:
the ones we admire, who show us who’s boss,
the ones we look after, who look after us,
and the ones always there, with never a fuss.

This place is family, and this place is home.
When you come in here, you’re one of our own.
I’m welcoming you to this local of ours
for a minute, a day or a couple of hours.
Now don’t hang about – come and learn something new.
This pub is mine, and now it’s yours, too.

The Ship Inn By Laura Ellison

Drop your anchor here and stay for a while,
Where gravy laps at the rim of warmed china plates under a flock of silent silver gulls
There is no river now – no salmon to catch, or banks to burst – and no smugglers either
But The Ship is still firmly afloat, and Sunday Lunch is served.

There is no lighthouse, but let the signs guide you in from the roar of the road with their winding ivy sleeves
The wood is dark, the fire is lit, and a fleet of mounted brass boats reflect its glow.
Relinquish the wheel to your captain and relax, they’re old hands at this by now –
Take stock of your crew mates, your fellow passengers, and together, watch other ships pass you by.

A peel of thunderous laughter rumbles from somewhere behind you, and you hear:
‘You’ll have to push me home in a wheelbarrow!’
You wonder where else home could possibly be, if not right here,
With the radio as your siren and the smoke in your hair.
You’re safe, says the red-and-white rubber ring on the wall, says the custard-covered bread and butter pudding in your bowl, says the fairy light constellation above you.

Or maybe you want to go on deck and spin the wheel yourself?
Or shelter from the storm amid driftwood and rope?
If the birdsong lulls you to sleep, don’t worry –
The cockerel will wake you at dawn.