Works in progress

Another session in the library yesterday. I had a wander around Thornaby town centre, a mix of slightly foreboding 60s architecture merging into newly regenerated areas and familiar high street shops. I wrote the first few lines of the ‘Journey’s poem  for the book based on my journey to the library and, hopefully, left it open for someone to carry it on. I’ve also been working on some pieces based on the centre and how it has changed. Until recently the centre was so 60s, lots of heavy set grey buildings, harsh lines, curly gangways and multi story flats. I was chatting to a guy in his forties yesterday who said he remembers hating the centre even as a kid . “Too much concrete.” The centre was dominated by The Pavillion, a community leisure centre which has also been refurbished. The library was inside (and is still on the site). I started thinking generally of how modern that must have been when it was built and that is forming the basis of The Leisure Centre, a work in progress.

The New Leisure Centre

 Wasn’t designed as a monstrosity

Each brick was laid with optimism

A desire to experience the velocity

Of cities in the sky

How high they stacked its car park!

Monolithic and square shouldered

Dissected by shafts and gangways

The New Leisure Centre

Is a state of the art community facility

Incorporating an ice rink

A multi-purpose gym

 Olympic sized swimming pool

Squash courts, saunas, children’s soft play

An array of high quality dining and refreshment spaces   

A Brave New World of sleek lockers

Burnished badminton courts

Where shuttlecocks floated like satellites

The neon reception

The machines vending powered soup

The stuf astronauts drink!

Just think

(well, like i said, it’s a work in progress)