More Than A Memory, and more

Our latest arts edition featuring work by five unique Medway creatives

Welcome to our latest Saturday creative edition. These will be coming to you on the first Saturday of the month, alongside our Sunday interviews, in a manner that is something akin to a broadsheet’s culture magazine or a Medway ‘New Yorker’. These editions feature a mixture of art, music, photography, poetry, short films, and stories from Medway creatives, demonstrating the breadth of talent in our towns.

This edition features More Than a Memory by Dan Gardner, Tracey Charlick by Sophie Jongman, Groovy Trousers by SP Hutchings, Hare by David Cramer Smith, and Self Centred, episode one by Steven Keevil.

These editions are under our Medwayish banner. If you are a Medway creative and you would be interested in submitting work to a future edition, please email medwayish@gmail.com.

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Our first piece this month is an original poem and accompanying photographs by Dan Gardner.

More Than A Memory

by Dan Gardner

Photo by Dan Gardner

Some days past
I long to relive
to return, sit, savour
and give
myself a chance
to forget or forgive
that these were the days
of innocence, of love.

Return me to childhood
I would bask in its sudden presence
watching for the kind hearts
giving more of the little I could
while nowhere
in the hands of youth
would sit a disconnection
like never before.

Oh, how sweet a memory that is
the branches of an oak tree
that would today seem almost fictional
providing all the wonder we would need
I, by my brother’s side
always following his lead
as summer swept us away
from reality, that
followed closely behind
teeth baring.

Thinking of what
we were, then
behind the garage, with
the doll in the mud, found buried
it's agitation to us, as
a story of terror formed
this old net of fading memories
of love and fear
lonely fickle hearts
tossed into the cold musk of
our own imaginations
the unknown youth we would endure.

So, what's the past for?
It's more than a memory now
this embodies warm conversations
with myself age 7, age 14
reassuring an unsettled mind
that no voice is better
than a foolish one.

Recalling things I'd heard
witnessed and misunderstood
forgotten stories
fleeting, flashing fragments
locked inside my bones
like a prison and a dream.

Awaking to the glow of my
tiny blue television
and the street lights by
the petrol station roundabout
from my bedroom window, I
can feel it still
scenes of serenity
writing stories in the night
tales of a twisted melody
in the quiet and calm of
self-absorption.

Ignorance was bliss, oh
how I wish we had it still
and innocence is missed, the
way I used to feel
a mightier connection
distant impressions
linger in my reflection, like
fading footprints in the rain.

This is
Friday nights
a family swim
Sundays
roast chicken
peppercorn sauce
with the crispy skin.

This is
chalk for goalposts
on the fence and the wall
it is where we would be found
every day after school.

This is
three of us, sometimes four
at dark by the railway bridge
and what we saw
a mysterious figure
through the wire fence
on the other side
there, then gone
hearts alive
proving brave with each
step on the bridge
'til fear made us flee
then – like dogs let from their leads
we ran into the night
chests pounding – free.

This is
white cider in my
brothers red escort
on the driveway, and
I knew that life
was damaged – fragile
I was younger than them
but I knew that, and
I felt a part of
something unhinged.

Laughter, a willing addiction
the only thing we
knew how to do well
it was how we healed
whilst navigating
a fresh confusion of being
here, without being
consumed by tears
in the silence of our minds.

Where did it all go
the time
the ever-changing dimensions
of our past
I wonder, how it really was
in this place
at that moment?
Can we really know?
But as you grow
you understand, remembering
the little things that mattered most
a nostalgic tide
dividing distinctions between
what was, and
what we created inside.

Now some days they last
as I long to live
to stay, sit, savour
and give
myself a chance
to regret or forgive
that these are the days
of wisdom, of love.

Photo by Dan Gardner

Dan Gardner is a Medway-based photographer who has produced a series of books documenting our towns. His book Walking Wainscott is available on our Medwayish shop.

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Next is an original painting, originally produced on canvas and reproduced here.