Being a northern soul I have written a few poems about the history, landscape and culture of Yorkshire. Here is a selection for you, which I hope you will find stimulating. Let me know what you think.
Bradford Beck
Named by people from the North
Beckkr meaning stream
Broad Ford
Born in Keelham
Trickling down through High Birk and Hole Bottom
You were once crossed at Broad Stones
Carrying the scars of history
A site for human cruelty -
Men who ducked witches
'Unruly women' chucked
From your banks
As others looked on
How many sank?
Once called the filthiest river in England
Foul smelling
Blacker than the coal flowing through
Bradford's industrial heart
You are now diverted,
Unloved
Mistreated and
Polluted
Sewage overflow clogging your veins,
Hidden from view, ashamed,
Under the streets of Bradford
But environmental campaigns
Offer you redemption,
And emerging at Shipley into the light, you breathe –
Gently kissing the Aire.
Melissa Dennison April 23
My Bradford
This landscape of tarmac, concrete, and cobbles
with snickets and ginnels
that spirit you away,
down ancient Holloways
and lanes
to hopeful redevelopments
famed curry houses;
pizza;
mushy peas and
fish n' chip teas.
Scraps n' cakes in butties,
birthplace of the independent Labour Party -
A proper northern powerhouse
melas
dancing
singing
and rioting,
where purple heather is growing
on hills that appear timeless
as
mizzling
drizzling
rain
erodes -
nothing ever stays the same.
Yorkshire monsoon
Drumming
morse code on glass,
even the trees are taking shelter -
huddled up
nestling together.
Dalmatian spots
patterned leaves,
hydrangea heads
drooping.
Bedraggled buddleia
with blooms
weighed down
left to its own devices -
Butterflies abandoning play,
hunkering down
waiting it out;
the garden looks like it needs
a good wringing out!
Comments