Narrated by Stephen Hall. This poem looks at how our ancestors affect us.


Other useful links.

www.randallstephenhall.com 

www.earthnativeart.co.uk 

www.soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall for Stephen’s most recent songs.


 


The Gate In The Field 6.5.11

Narrated by Hugh Midden. He's a great man for a tall tale and here's a good example. He tells us about an adventure he had once, with a witch from County Antrim.


Other useful links.

www.randallstephenhall.com 

www.earthnativeart.co.uk 

www.soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall for Stephen's most recent songs. 




The Witch's Keks

This poem looks at the origins of the word "Scots" only to find the bond between the words Scots and Irish.

Ulster Scots Irish

A long poem discussing the pros and cons of growing, wearing and sharing your beard. Ah now . . .

BEARDS. 17.12.14

Amongst Us.
By Randall Stephen Hall©
A cappella singing with drum and percussion.

This song is a partner to the musical poem “Silent Valleys”.
Set around the end of the Nine Years War, amongst the devastation in Ulster and the coming famine in the heart of the winter.

There’s something here amongst us.
A dragon’s breath at night.
A mist upon the hedgerow
Oh come and see the light.
For out amongst the snow
The cattle’s breath is warm.
For we are just so cold now.
Oh save us all from harm.

Cold birds upon the branches.
And the crows are flying free.
The blackness of their feathers.
So full of chivalry.
There’s no honour in the crops.
There’s no honour in the ground.
No light here in my home
For everyone has gone.

Chorus,

Just silence in my valleys.
Just silence in the fields.
Silence in the villages
With bells that never peel.
The horsemen are amongst us.
There’s drumming in the hills.
I’m hungry and I’m thirsty
With only blood to spill.

So we’ve taken to the roddens
With a child amongst the woods.
He looks at me with wonder.
He thinks that I am good.
With a little food and magic.
I’ll keep us safe and warm.
Oh save us from the shadows
Who ring the loud alarm.

Chorus.

There’s a queen who lives in London
And she thinks she knows my name.
She hammers us like coinage
All for the king of Spain.
Ah, the devil’s in the detail
And it’s there for you to see.
The lives of this wee corner
You’ve taken all from me.

Chorus.

End.


Amongst Us. 21.2.15

Without Ceremony.
By Randall Stephen Hall © 26.2.15

Just click the link or cut and paste the link html into your search engine for the additional songs.


On a bright Spring day it’s a good thing to lift the dull ragged weight of winter from off your shoulders. To fly with all the other starlings from hedge to hedge in this Spring dance.

Here’s a poem I call “Without Ceremony”.

When the dead weight of my brother
Flipped over like a capsizing boat
There was no captain to blame
For leaving the ship early.

No passengers running
Or swimming beyond the confines
Of this disaster.

I lost my brother.
But I lost my mother too
In her processing of this event, out loud
When she let it be known
With the shrug of her shoulder
There, in front of her chosen advocate
And my sister
That she would have preferred me dead
Rather than my brother.

Such was the colour of her grief.

Two holes and two sons, buried.
One, with ashes never scattered.
The other, this loss
Buried without ceremony.


•	Other related songs . . .

“LOVE’S ALIVE” 
https://soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall/loves-alive-demo-23-10-14 

‘THE SUN, THE MOON AND STARS”.
https://soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall/the-sun-the-moon-and-the-stars 






Without Ceremony. 26.2.15

The Sharp Beak.
By Randall Stephen Hall.

“The Sharp Beak”, is written from the perspective 
of a female mill worker in the late nineteenth century. 
She hopes to leave Belfast and the north to raise her two daughters in America.

She is working late into the night, getting ready for the morning when she hopes to finally leave Belfast, her mother and the grave of her first child in the bog meadows, not far from the mill, where she has worked since a child.

“The Sharp Beak” is a reference to the harder sounds of the Belfast accent contributed to by mill workers speaking above the sounds of machinery and the industrial age. This poem is showing respect to that bright sound.


My sharp, sharp, beak
Goes stitching, stitching, stitching.
With all my friends beside me.
And her, she’s always bitchin’

All my speckled family
And all my speckled friends.
We all do much the same
We work on what they send.

Conditions seem so hard here
All coughs and damp disease.
I clean all of our floors, Lord.
I rest down on my knees.

I might not have too much you know
But I have my mother’s pride.
I won’t sleep in this sheep dip.
And see him?
He got off-side!

They say that brave America
Wants people just like me.
Have you seen them big, big posters
For the land of the bloody free?

So I’ll keep on stitching, stitching
I’ll peck with my sharp beak.
I’ll clock the factory hours
Until my hands can barely speak.

I’ll stitch and scrimp and save.
Collect my bright new shiny pins.
A Jay, a Crow, a Magpie.
Magician, Mother, thin.

I’ve got to get the fare now.
Or I know I’ll just go mad.
My girls deserve a new life.
Not like this one, I’ve just had.

Wee mammie, och, wee mammie
She’s getting awful old.
She’ll live with all our cousins.
Hard by the mill house wall.

I told her all my plans you know
But the guilt, it holds me still.
My life’s been held, and tethered.
Rollin’ cloth on down this hill.

So I’ll stitch, stretch every sinew
To better my wee girls.
They’ll not peck cloth like me now.
Buried deep within this mill.

A farmer’s wife, a teacher
Placing seeds within the land.
They too will all have children
I so want to see them stand.

It’s the dreamin’ keeps me goin’
Golden hope, a floating leaf.
I just want to leave the factory.
Paid in full, a bright receipt.

We came in from the country
With our slower ways for folk.
The road began to narrow
As we settled in the smoke.

Och, am I just dreamin’ Francis
With the doves upon that wall?
Will I ever save the fare now
To escape and leave it all.

Jesus, help me, Francis hear me.
Send a sign amongst this din.
Let me rest upon your shoulders
Let me fly to kiss your chin.

I named the baby saint-like
But he didn’t stand, nor race
I bundled him in cloth
I had to steal from out this place.

But he’s safe amongst the meadows.
Where he plays and visits me.
The willow’s always weeping.
The mill race always pulling,
Always pulling, to be free.

God help me, yes, we’ll do it
Or I’ll be damned upon the fire.
I promised you and Francis
And I’ll not be called a liar.
Tomorrow, we’re up and leavin’
We’ll be headin’ for the docks.
I’m sittin’ workin’ late now
Just to darn these last few socks.

The ship, I’ve seen her resting
Made of wood and cloth and nails.
I’ve bundled up my heart for them.
My sleeping little sails.

Their hearts they beat like mine you know
They yearn to beat real loud.
They long to stand up shouting
To be heard amongst this crowd.

My sharp tongued way of speaking
Singing louder than machines.
Our rattle, clatter, chatter.
Full of hope and idle dreams.

Starling sharp they made me.
Starling sharp and berry bright.
As I peck for my wee darlings.
As I peck for them this night.

God, I long for their tomorrows
On the cart we’ll swing our chest
Then Lough Lea will be unfolding
When our ship sails for the west.
.








The Sharp Beak 21.3.15

THE ONE COLOUR RED.
By Randall Stephen Hall.

I was on my way to Larne, a matter of days ago, when I stopped at Glenoe waterfall. If you’ve never been it’s well worth a visit. On a day when the sun shines, maybe after heavy rainfall the night before, the waterfall cuts through the rock with all the power that nature can bring to this ancient spot.

On a number of occasions the sheer power of the water has intimidated me, frightened me and left me amazed at how little droplets of rain can gather to become a force, a torrent and a frightening thing.

On this visit, I began to get some words and ideas for a tune. They just turned up. Sometimes these ideas gather like the droplets to form into a tune, a poem or a song. How do they gather? Where do they gather? I have no idea. They just do, and like water, if given to you, you need to drink it or just throw it away. So usually I drink it as best I can. 

The mysterious process of gathering, or welcoming in, ideas for a song. So here are some droplets, gathered on the page from out of the sky, for which I am grateful.

All my relations.

When the days and the nights
Are just singing.
When the days and the nights 
Are just blue.
When all of my thoughts are returning
Like a bird, to thinking of you.

When the days and the nights
Are a couple.
When the days and the nights
Are in love.
I feel your blessings upon me.
I feel them fall from above.

When your waterfall rushes upon me.
When your love shakes the roots of my tree.
I was alive but not living.
Just living is not being free.

I’m rowing your boat cross the river.
I’ll meet you far over there.
When the days and the nights are a couple.
When the days and the nights are a pair.

When the days and the nights
Are a suitcase.
I’ll send myself over to you.
Unpack me and treat me real gentle.
I know you’ll know what to do.

Oh, the bars are all lit up up at night now.
But there’s nowhere to go where I’ll find
The corner, the table, the moment
And the girl, with love on her mind.

Oh, bandage my heart and my body.
Oh, cherish me here in your bed.
Bend your neck to caress me.
And just pick the one colour red.


The One Colour Red 27.3.15

Block Buster.
By Randall Stephen Hall.
Narrated by Hugh Midden. A North Antrim Tribesman.

She sat low in the sky
Like the winter sun.
Her beauty was so blinding
I had to put on my welding goggles
Just to soak in her sheer loveliness.

Her shape, her cubic capacity
The movement about her dress.
Everything hung just right
On a curved superstructure fashioned by the gods
Or at least Harland and Wolfe.

And when she lit up a smoke
Oh boy, I almost choked out of jealousy for that lucky cigarette.
But here’s the fat and thin of it.
I just knew that I couldn’t win.
I couldn’t begin to possess
Something that would never fully be mine.
For there would always be other boys
Standin’ in line, right round the corner
For just a flicker of this block buster.

Hangin’ around like tom cats
Sniffin’ after cheese or something more gamey.
Geez, ah geez . . .
I don’t take too kindly
To any of them buddies interfering with my
Cheese and biscuits.

And as much as the situation had brought me to my knees
Salvation came upon me
After this unrequited lust
Like some hot bull, hot and fully fussed.
I must tell you, that the flat plain of my heart
Unleashed a stubborn mechanism
Locking in upon itself
Like a dog that wouldn’t bark
Or take to the leash.

No farther was I for teasin’ boy.

The purpose being, to close the door
Upon that room or floor.
For that flower would never ever
Bloom for me.

As it had and would for other men.
Do you hear what I’m sayin’
Do you ken John Peel?

Taxi! Taxi!


Block Buster

The Middle Man

The Mechanism. (Or The Basket Case. Part One.)
By Randall Stephen Hall. 23.1.15.


When I was growing up I didn’t know any of my story, my back story, my past, the context in which I found myself, (in which we all find ourselves). It was to be explained by osmosis, by guess work, by random snatches of conversations, overheard from my parents, my relations and my friends.

This shaping of identity must be a common experience for us all. Picking up bits of this and bits of that as we grow.

As a wee baby, I was dropped into this situation. My parents, in a generic sense, were both Protestants. Both Presbyterians, in fact. A very different thing from being just a Protestant. But of course, as a little creature who could not talk, who was totally reliant on my parents for everything, it didn’t really matter what I was. For at the end of the day, what was I ?

I was just a baby. Like a brand new page from a new sketch pad. Un-blemished. Not one line, daub or finger mark upon me. I had no sense of identity. I was not genetically Protestant. My DNA didn’t make me Protestant any more than the distance between my eyes being an indicator of my Protestant birth right. (Though, they are fairly close.) 

I was just me. Just me with my white freckly skin. Just me in the way I burped and reached out my arms to the world. As far as I remember, at the time, I was not a “Taig hater” as Tadgh or MacTeague had no meaning for me yet.

So there I was. Born at Ardenlee nursing home, just behind the Good Doctor’s Spirit Shop, on the Ravenhill Road in 1957. In a city full of smog, pollution, heavy smokers, flat caps and knowing your place. It was important to know who you were and who you weren’t. Is that true today, or is it just a new re-imagining of the old? Us and them. It hasn’t gone away you know. 

Like it or not, baby, youth or adult, I still got branded a “PROD”. Under the blanket. Under the blanket of this four letter word (no pun intended . . . “aye right, big lad.”). Just sucking my thumb and watching the world go by. Unknown to me, me and my Moses basket were being slowly fed into a huge and hungry mechanism. But before I could reach it I must point out that I was being carried there by a number of people . . . A Presbyterian minister, a number of MPs, the Civil Service, the state education system, the Health system, the Public Record Office, the City Hall and a number of other public bodies. All carrying me and my wee basket, up above their heads. Almost a parade! Walking behind me was a Catholic Priest and the Catholic Education system as they wanted no part of me. (Too hard to digest.) That’s okay I’m not offended. After all, it was 1957 in old cold Nornia. 

The mechanism to which I was being taken to looked like a cross between Stormont, a factory, the Titanic and the ghost train at Barry’s in Portrush. All combined. I was taken round the back and left on the steps. From there I was lifted with Asbestos gloves (all the rage in those days, especially in schools), and left to be weighed, and tagged (LEFT or RIGHT). As a wee Prod I was taken to the “RIGHT” room (the room on the right), and left in a gigantic cot, with several other thousand wee dotes from the day I was born. All “RIGHT” and Protestant, but in a sense, all wrong. Off to a bad start. A start from which many of us never recover.

Down a corridor my doppleganger “Ragnall Stiofán MacHalla”, a wee Catholic, equally white and freckly, was on his way to the LEFT room, (the room on the left), to crawl in amongst his Gaelic brothers and sisters. Sucking on the teet of mother Ireland with Sian O’Riada tunes getting his wee left foot tappin’ nicely. (Ah now . . .)



The Mechanism. 4.4.15

Poem for Kathleen  19.2.19
By Randall Stephen Hall ©

Cups of tea and conversation.
Relationships built without destruction.
No ructions here.
Just the calm waters of age
Like fadge on the griddle.

The middle ground.
A calm voice and dark eyes.
The rattle of tea cups and love.
All cups are cracked eventually.

The promise of Spring
And the wee birds call her away
With family and friends.
Mummy, Daddy, Jack and Samuel amongst others.
All waiting for the big outing.

All questions answered.
all hugs received.
The glue of family, patched and repaired.
Still in place.
Still, still the calm waters.
The buds of spring are calling from out the trees.

Poem For Kathleen

I wrote this poem in the same way I write most of my poems
and songs. In my experience ideas just turn up like an unexpected visitor. They knock your door. They connect with you and if you have the sense you let them in.

It could be a few words or a few lines. The few times I have let things go
I have usually had regrets. Either too tired, not awake enough, too distracted but I know that if I do that, they won’t be back.

This special exchange is an example of how poems come.

Seedlings.
By Randall Stephen Hall ©

The discovery of her body
Didn’t come as any great surprise.
More of a relief really.

Just one bullet
Did the trick, the dark magic
In that one huddled
Submissive second.

Pulling up a cold
Fog bound blanket about her
Like the forgetfulness of time.

Yet the forensic trail
Sang out the narrative of her
Last few moments.
For caught up in her left hand
There lay the seedlings
Of a bright summer flower.

Snatched up in these, her last Autumn steps
Or perhaps, placed there by the guilt
Of a foot soldier to the cause.
Raw to the new experience.
Doubting her blood sacrifice
Not freely given

Nature’s small rosary beads.
These seedlings, still, waiting to be counted.
Waiting to be planted.
Resting, deep within a mother’s desire
To be at home with her children
Just to make their tea
And hug their untidy faces.

A poem based on memories of hiking in the Mournes when I was in my teens. I think the poem I was ever in Mourne was Quinn's in Newcastle main street away back in about 1973.

The thing that struck me about this area was how rugged, surprising and unexpected it was at times like the inland beach by a lake and yet so close to a bog.

Me and my friends had exciting times there as young hikers.

Made In Mourne Randall Stephen Hall

Hugh Midden is a North Antrim tribesman. A wearer of the plaid blanket, jeans, overalls, working boots and ancient Harris tweed "jecket". He is the alter ego of the artist, musician and writer, Randall Stephen Hall. In many ways, Hugh's voice is much more suited to some of Stephen's songs and poems so, in some cases Hugh speaks foe Stephen and vice-a-versa. 

Hugh Midden Speaks

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