A Northern Song

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By Ewan

Mon, 01 Nov 2021
  • 2952 reads
14 comments
 

The same old jester, the same old tune:

“wealth and prosperity coming soon,”

to a village, near you, that once was a town

- right up 'til the day the factory closed down.

 

We had a gasworks, a steel mill and a market too,

there was even a place to turn horses to glue.

A station for police and one for the train,

all of them gone: “ just money down the drain.”

 

There is talk of developments on brown-field sites,

shoe-box houses with attendant street lights.

“Build a railway station!” though there isn’t a line

- and there hasn’t been, since they closed down the mine.

 

All the empty promises, not one of them meant,

the same old jester, singing Feste’s lament.

 

[Hear this on soundcloud here : https://soundcloud.com/user-224867227/a-northern-song
If I could afford Patrick Stewart, people might buy my poetry]

 

Certificate U
Poem
Days Like These
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by Turlough on

Excellent words that could be describing the sad plight of any of hundreds of small towns in the North of England or the former industrial bits of Britain.

I have nothing against horses but your line 'there was even a place to turn horses to glue' made me smile. I could really imagine downcast people turning up at the door on a murky morning with a dead horse in the back of a van and asking a man at a reception desk for it to be 'processed'. Then some muttered words along the lines of 'It'll be ready Thursday' as a ticket was passed across the counter.

I really enjoyed reading this. 

Turlough

Submitted by Ewan on

so carefully. It' s some 40 years since I lived further north than Lincoln and even then that was only 10 years out of 37 , the rest of which I spent in Berlin whilst in the RAF and then 14 years in Spain after I left. 

I shouldn't be surprised at what I've found since circumstances dictated I had to return to live in W.Yorks. I am just absolutely flabbergasted at the bare-faced lies used to placate everyone north of the Humber, as though any promise made to someone outside North London can be broken with impunity.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

Thanks again for stopping by.

E x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by marandina on

I will be drawing this to Boris's attention during his intervals at the COP meeting thingy. He is a man of his word *cough*

 

Submitted by Ewan on

"Lies".

Thanks for reading, as always

E x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Nah, you don't need Patrick Stewart. Great reading.

How can you not believe we are Building Back, Levelling Up, All In It Together...? There will be so much hot air in Glasgow this week, the fight against global warming will be completely lost by Friday.

Submitted by Ewan on

... laughter in the dark, though, isn't it? (And in the cold, the desert and the 1000-island archipelago that will be Little Britain, when the ice melts).

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day! Please do share/retweet if you enjoy it too. 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Very well deserved. The bare faced lies have been growing barer and barer for a while now. Let's hope they result in some change for the better soon (doubt it though)

 

Submitted by celticman on

yes, that about sums it up. 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I hope Luigi reads this, you have done a brilliant rhyme, it really adds to the message. Agree with Turlough 

"there was even a place to turn horses to glue."

this bit stood out for me, too. Maybe the childlike too with glue, it seemed so happy like an enthusiastic estate agent describing all mod cons, yet has such connotations of despair and betrayal and horror for the animals.

I worry how many new builds will be on flood plains and methane leaking landfill sites with no new work places or schools or hospitals, while buildings actually in towns are boarded up

great pod

 

Submitted by bhi on

Flows so well, and the rhymes add to the swelling message, which resonates with me as there is a development, down the road from me, in the last throes of the planning cycle, that will be built on a flood plain and is a black skies site. Local people voted against it, as did the borough council, but the developers took it to the home secretary, who approved it with the words that the village needed to be revitalised and this would just be the start of something good! 

 

Submitted by Ewan on

 I'm sure I read about that particular case in the Sundays. The home secretary seems a truly venal person as far as I can see.

I don't find the technique of rhyme and scansion too difficult, but often find it hard to avoid stumbling by accident into comic verse - or even worse - doggerel. So, with that in mind I'm so pleased people think it works here.

Thanks very much for reading.

Ewan x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Poem of the Week - Congratulations!

 

Submitted by Ewan on

even some of the not-so-hard left are equally incensed by what they see as reporting biased towards this particular government by the BBC. Some might claim that a certain balance has been achieved when both right and left feel there is a bias towards the other flank.

As for the Blitz Spirit, well yes, I assume there was quite a deal of 'all in it together', however there are police records which point to a significant increase in serious crime during that time. Nevertheless, I - and I presume you yourself weren't either -  wasn't there. In spite of that, I do think some of the spectacles we wear to look at the past have much more than a rose tint.

Thank you very much for reading, and the comments.

Ewan

 

Author Page at the 'Zon