There is a hidden track in my Unselected Poems in emulation of those unannounced pieces of music you - at least for the first time - did not expect to hear on an album, the first of which was (I think) ‘Her Majesty’ on The Beatles’ Abbey Road.
Of course my hidden track isn’t very hidden, because, thanks to a mix-up caused by me delivering everything as ever so very late, it’s listed in the contents. As ‘Little Red Robot (Hidden Track)’. Which means, if for no other reason, this edition must sell out, so that a reprint can correct my unfortunate error. You know what to do.
The poem is dedicated to the very talented Paul Summers, whose image of the Herd Groyne Light illumines my cover. (There’s also a grateful little nod to Smokestack Books via Howling Wolf, who recorded both ‘Smokestack Lightning’ and ‘Little Red Rooster’.) The Little Red Robot itself is the final alternative persona in the series which punctuates the various hitherto uncollected sequences which make up the collection.
The Herd Groyne Light at South Shields was, unbeknownst to strangers, a late Victorian robot made out of cast iron and corrugated steel that had, mid-bellow on its foghorn in the early 1960s, become self-aware.
The Little Red Robot had no arms, so, when it strutted round the docks and former shipyards on its three red legs it had to pretend it had its hands behind its back like a time and motion inspector.
Every now and then it would stride to the end of the pier and look out at the container ships crossing the bar. It supposed these contained spare parts for all the lighthouses of these islands - reflectors and bulbs and panes and frames and self-assembly kits, so that every route might be safely illumined.
It imagined that they contained all the sunken ships ever recovered or yet to be recovered, including those known only by sonar or submarine cameras as wielded by, it supposed, tiny submersible versions of itself, together with their drowned crews, properly readied for burial, and all their cargoes, whether tinned hams, stacked Willow Pattern porcelains, or ancient amphorae of, still, perfectly drinkable wine.
This made it so excited it could not contain itself, and it would squat and lay a red phone box or, sometimes, a scarlet pillar box.
As one of these was almost as outmoded as the other, police helicopters would come and chase it away, and council refuse trucks would set up a perimeter while they cleaned up the mess.
Occasionally, however, local people, who knew to look out for such incidents as their ancestors might have kept an eye out for wrecks, would post love letters, or attempt to make calls before the phone boxes could be shut down.
The authorities were legally obliged to honour these attempts at communication. But, to their bewilderment, they found they were mostly addressed to former regimes, fabulous entities, or, simply, the dead.
It wasn’t clear whether this was a marvellous coincidence, or something people felt compelled to enact - or if this was some metamorphosing power of the Little Red Robot itself.
Whichever, whether the letters were addressed to ordinary workers in the former Soviet Union, to Red Skelton or the Scarlet Woman of Revelations, or were recorded messages to dead aunts or ex-lovers, every effort was made to deliver such communications, even if this amounted to an official impersonating the intended addressee and forging their reply.
When this happened, the Little Red Robot felt like its imaginary arms had extended so far as to embrace the entire world!
