LAWRENCE FREIESLEBEN, Film & Television Editor of The Brazen Head, has been an artist and writer as long as he can remember – cycling away at weekends from the council estate where he grew up, to paint the countryside as an escape from the restrictive tedium of the school week. Leaving home at 16, he has lived in 17 different areas of the UK – from Devonshire to Northumberland – painting and writing, always vigilantly questioning the interior light of landscape, cityscape and wider atmosphere. Living virtually off-grid with his large family, both remote locations and urban visits have formed the backscene to a passion for film which has intertwined with art and writing throughout his career. Films remain a key creative focus since childhood, resulting in encyclopaedic folders and clippings as well as a constant stream of film festivals. He currently lives in a dilapidated Lancashire seaside town
Devonshire
Staggering amidst a floodtide Heavitree
of happiness embalmed in memory sudden frost children
Impression . . . kaleidoscope . . . slowed Chapleton, Umberleigh
of veiled suburb or deep country
part lament, part symphony hands enfolded
To cope or not to cope bright face, rosy cheeks
Is not the question . . .
Summer bluebells, autumn leaf, the red streets missed (brickwork and gardens)
the grass-glowing banks of peace turned white
back or forwards your singing eyes
it all returns Sidmouth, Ottery
to find areas unnoticed or skimmed
certain times become legend Honiton.
Hail the slowing train for the clatter up Taw’s wooded, meandering river (1981)
or else this confession under the sun
will get out of hand
match-light flaring in and out Hembury, Belstone, Great Mis Tor
of places and times centring by weight let go
upon Bideford or Exeter . . .
These blind summits can be cold
give me time to intensify or pass . . .
Floating through empty streets where all life has ceased
I wonder how to wake or whether
this is the truth returned to the ether
the shadows rich, the ruins better
than a world we have sold for a molehill of groats
squandered ourselves and scrapped the future
between lonely screens and the social surf
all thought swallowed in a fly-tip of chatter
the maya of progress
a ceaseless march . . . Return to the past:
its light and feel, a sandstone red
background of caverns ringing the head
the matches flare, nocturnal semaphore,
signalling Exeter and Dawlish Warren.
A girl I knew when we were both ten,
moved here and was never seen again, a new start or an old ending?
like post-war Sidwell Street’s arcades of idealism Exeter again
abandoned, due to be demolished
or awaiting restoration I hope
The train gallops on metals not traversed for 30 years
four old homes passed already . . .
I want to say I love you Bonehill Down
but just now, you are not here
(and as) the tunnel approaches, the blind end trough
in the mind’s ear, I can still hear beyond the years
past this washed-out, effortless tube,
the blast of Ajax and Achilles Indomitable
even in the 80s there was still an air of splendour
diesels with concentrated power
worthy descendants of the dragons of steam Seaton Junction
Surging brakes slow the water meadows passing west of Axminster
unchanged it seems since we last alighted:
1989, and a pushchair wheel detached itself to cross the platform and roll slowly off its edge
We watched this filmic omen of tragedy in horror
but as the wheel settled on the sleepers, began to laugh.
All those places where we came and went Harpford, Ottery, Hembury Fort
recur again in the travelling carriage glass
with different children under different skies or yet alone
swerving on, fast again, they will not rest,
a devastating parade immediacy struck by infinite distance
their atmosphere is porous haze, beauty,
as if a spell could so easily slim slate graves
contradict the years reverse
All these thoughts I would have to avoid (at the lodge)
dismiss every fantasy and whatever remains
every background yearning excuse (Devon is Hevon, says the mural/graffiti)
accept yet reject getting tired and the gathering gall of a disregarded life
in the sliding anaconda of this declining world
reject the dwindling thread between us the habit of misunderstanding
Companionship (it seems) is not enough for self-surmounting tunnellers or their aerial quest
impatient with the human form
without extravagant love (and probably with it too) – unreasonable, crushing,
these mimes and twists of frustration
only bring closer the hour of the wolf,
glimmering in uncompromising starkness
in purity or despair
clutch hands, see far behind the yes, feel the warm rounded limbs regardless
such halfway states
between body and soul, not relegated to the past
the idea of completion, of that internal ghost . . .
comes and goes as the train sweeps through and on Chard Junction
to the sirens of alarms
the striped angry barriers
the crushing ache of life
gone
lift off is here, at last . . .
LAWRENCE FREIESLEBEN, Film & Television Editor of The Brazen Head, has been an artist and writer as long as he can remember – cycling away at weekends from the council estate where he grew up, to paint the countryside as an escape from the restrictive tedium of the school week. Leaving home at 16, he has lived in 17 different areas of the UK – from Devonshire to Northumberland – painting and writing, always vigilantly questioning the interior light of landscape, cityscape and wider atmosphere. Living virtually off-grid with his large family, both remote locations and urban visits have formed the backscene to a passion for film which has intertwined with art and writing throughout his career. Films remain a key creative focus since childhood, resulting in encyclopaedic folders and clippings as well as a constant stream of home-made film festivals. He currently lives in a dilapidated Lancashire seaside town