I wrote a long poem called The Spriggan for Halloween and I'll be performing live as a witch with two other witches Rosie Canning and Lyndsay Bamfield - they'll be reading haunting tales ... woooo woooo! ... and other story tellers at
The Little Green Dragon Ale House
928 Green Lanes
Mason's Corner
Winchmore Hill
London N21 2AD
Buses 329 (from Enfield and Palmers Green) and 125 (from Southgate, Whetstone and Finchley) stop right outside the Little Green Dragon. The nearest train stations are Winchmore Hill or Grange Park (5 to 10 min walk). The nearest underground station is Southgate (Piccadilly Line), then catch 125 bus.
Tuesday Night 31st October 2017 - 7 pm
Here's an extract.... The Spriggan is a faerie/Green Man figure from Cornish folklore - who guards ancient sites and ruins...
The Parkland Walk is an old railway track that closed down in the 1950s when Mr Beecham decided that many small railway stations were no longer economic. There was a huge outcry but they closed anyway - stations that closed along The Parkland Walk were such as Crouch End and Muswell Hill. Many years later it was rescued from brambles and oblivion by a conservation/ permaculture group, who commissioned a statue of a 'spriggan' to be made by a sculptress. She built it into the side of one of the arches beside a short tunnel, made of brick.
The Spriggan
Dusk is falling on the
Parkland walk
the last remnants of walkers
quicken their step
they’ve heard the rumours, and
the rumours are right.
The goat man’s eyelids open a
tiny crack.
The woman pushing her pram
hurries past. A low growl
starts deep in the throat of
the black dog tied to her pram …
the dog knows, oh yes he
knows…
he keeps his head low, stiff-legged
as they scurry past,
down the path and out onto
the lane.
The last train chuffed its
way down this track in 1954.
Nature took over and time
stood still. Until in 1984,
the Parkland Walk was born. Banks of weeds and brambles
were cleared, now Nature was
to be conserved but controlled.
High up, where the walk
crosses a wide bridge
near Muswell Hill, the lights
of London are flickering on,
in a sea of twinkles across
to the Thames and beyond.
It’s a clear cold crispy
night and a full moon is rising.
The goat man lifts his grey
green head, stretches out
cold stiff limbs and looks to
the rising moon. He cocks his head,
listening …‘Can you hear it?
Can you hear it? His croaking voice,
rusty as old iron, speaks in
a hoarse whisper, to himself.
2 comments:
Hullo,
I write poetry which I perform with ukulele. I have two poems that may be suitable for Halloween, an Enfield ghost story and a murder riddle.
Is there an opportunity to perform at your event.
I live locally and drink at the Little Green Dragon.
Bernard Puckett
Forgot to leave contact details
bernard.puckett@which.net
077 43 89 89 43
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