Robinson and Cleaver’s department store in Belfast was an impressive Victorian building, neatly characterised in the poem ‘Street musician 1960’ by our poet today, Jane Monach. The Robinson and Cleaver business closed in 1984, but its “ornate and dramatic” building survives. As does the memory of ‘Danny Boy’, played on the musical saw, in Jane’s poem, on Day 620 of the daily poems.
Street musician 1960
The man seemed small
sitting in the shelter
of an unused door,
dirty collar, old stained mac,
crouched about the saw he held
between his knees, rocking
as the violin bow flowed smoothly
up and down the flexing sheet of metal.
An eerie wail of melody
wrapped round me
as we tramped the paving stones
of damp Belfast city centre.
I always listened for his song
across the road from Robinson and Cleaver’s
searched between seamed nylon stockings
amongst the passing coats of camel hair
to glimpse his old bent form
playing for his supper, smiling
as he stroked out ‘Danny Boy’, and winked
at the clink of a thruppeny bit.
Jane Monach
Prague street musician (© Wikipedia)