Bedlam Lane and the gasworks, and a freight line running through.
Red terraced houses, two-up, two-down, with the sound and the distant view
Of locomotives that grind and grate, and the railway train that runs
Conveying concrete or coal or brick or heavy naval guns.
I have loved your clanging industry, but your folk I scarcely knew!
Did they chatter and gnash their pork and pickles, twelve around the board,
Or laugh in the draughty parlour with the mallards across the wall?
Till the wallpaper faded and the sofa sagged and the young ones moved away
And mice crept over the grey-sheeted bed where Ernest, the eldest, lay ...
The buildings emptied. Now they're gone. I studied them while I could:
The shattered glass. The peeling green and white of painted wood.
Pale curtains stranded midway across. Black depths where hearths were cold ...
Yet sunlight livened the weathered brick and lustred the pane with gold.
Comments
Silver Spun Sand | January 7, 2010 - 15:10
A beautifully descriptive piece of writing. I could see it all as if it were a painting.
Tina
Luly Whisper | January 7, 2010 - 22:34
Thanks for the encouragement.
Nathan Bednarek | January 8, 2010 - 21:23
Wow, your first cherry and immediately your piece becomes the 'poem of the week'. A big well done from me.
Nathan.
Luly Whisper | January 8, 2010 - 21:26
Thank you
Frances Macaula... | January 13, 2010 - 02:57
Wonderful! An easy locomotive rhythm and unforced rhyme make this piece look deceptively easy.
Using the rule of three, you set the mood very early, posed a question to be extended in the 2nd stanza and then demonstrated your answer with a twist of gold, in the final. It's very clever and absolutely deserving of a cherry.
Now I'll have to read all your others because I'm sure I'll enjoy them.
Cavalcaderl | January 13, 2010 - 19:51
new Luly-whisper
thoroughly enjoyed and interesting.
Well earn't cherry! and your 1st will
read more.
line I love end,
Sunlight livened the weathered brick
and lustred the pane with gold.
great.
julie x cavalcader (:-
Larkin Williamson | January 16, 2010 - 15:03
I love this...I love trains and their history...you gave me pictures in words...thank you. :)
Frances Macaula... | January 20, 2010 - 17:34
Congratulations on Poem of the Week too!
Well-deserved.
Frances Macaula... | January 20, 2010 - 17:35
...