Watching 'Garage' and what came after (kind of a Monday poem)

Back when some of us were writing Monday Poems for TFE in September and October of this year one of the assignments involved watching a film called 'Garage' (2007 dir. Leonard Abrahamson). I couldn't get hold of the film on the week in question so I took the other option on offer (reading a particular Plath poem...and then writing this). However some of the poems others wrote after watching 'Garage' were intriguing so I eventually got a copy of the film last week (via one of those clever postal dvd rental places) and sat down to watch it on Thursday night.

From the poems and comments (find them all via TFE's post here) I knew the movie wasn't going to be a light-hearted comedy but it wasn't the doom-fest some of you had led me to expect either. It was sad, sure enough, but...really...what isn't? Some days almost everything makes me sad.

Anyway, I enjoyed the film (maybe that isn't quite the right word - let's say 'I thought it was good'). It is slow and simple and, I assume, fairly cheaply made but that can all be good when done right (and I think it was). There's some great acting, a lot of truth and a little story well told.

Straightaway after watching 'Garage' the first thought that came into my mind was that I might write something about small town life and its down side...then I remembered I'd pretty much done that for another TFE assignment (here). Then I thought about teenage drinking (I did a lot of that...and I really do mean a lot) but I just wasn't in the mood to write about that (maybe another time...). Then as I thought on and on a (really cheesey) song came into my mind and helped me on my way. I'm not going to tell you the song (maybe you can guess it...it has an Irish connection too) but here is the poem. Like the film the poem has sadness in it but it is not overwhelmingly sad (I don't think). It is just looking at what there is...as I see it.



Hold on, hold on

Some riders insist on hogging the front
They think it's their place, their right almost
They want to face obvious danger head on
Look it proudly in the face - open eye to open eye
They raise their arms joyfully, most voluntarily
And they laugh at the very idea of fear

Others select the middle cars
They don't look out and they don't look in
They watch the noisy folks up front
Whooping, flying, apparently progressing
And decide that often...
Just thinking about something is more than enough

Odd ones sit at the back, always
They don't really want to be there at all
They hate the people at the front
They hate the people in the middle
They squirm and shift and hate the safety harness too
They scribble in notebooks, draw wings in margins

There is movement between the zones, of course
Nothing's ever simple, nothing's ever complex
And then every once in what feels like a heartbeat
At the top of a rise, or the dip of a fall
Someone undoes a buckle and jumps clear out
The cars keep on moving, the track's unchanged

The body just falls so quickly down
Sometimes hitting scaffolding, sometimes not
And it pretty much always makes a fair old mess
Pieces of a life
Pieces of a dear life
You can't expect nothing to come from something

But below in the shadows someone will sort it
They have mops and cloths and tools down there
And an army of tough, well-worn pit ponies
All is unseen and unspectacular
By silent hands the bolts are tightened
And the whole goddamned show goes on, ever thus



RF 2009
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