Huddersfield

Up on the moors,

Among the bog cotton and heather, 

Millstone grit boulders,

Bilberries, bracken,

Lie a lad and lass together.

One is pale and shaken, 

Wretched, weak and broken.

It’s not Cathy and Heathcliffe,

Out in wind and weather,

For all he’s swarthy, black eyed, ‘other’,

It’s Mohammed and Chloe,

And she’s also had his brother,

And his best mate, Rashid, or someone or other. 

And peaty water is soaking through her jeans,

And she’s cold and shaking,

And she knows what he means 

When he promises he’ll see her tomorrow.

He’s going to leave her here,

Up on the moors,

Among the bog grass and the heather,

Under empty grey sky,

With just the lonely curlew’s cry

To remind her she’s alone,

Miles away from her mother.

Gas Light

The light, a greenish white, has yet a warmth,

One greater than itself could e’er possess,

It is not physical, this seeming heat,

It is a quality that is endowed 

By those who look upon it and feel blessed

Believing what they see has old, historic links,

And is the same kind radiance which bathed

The scene some hundred years ago. The street

May now be filled with passing cars, the crowd

Who walk the pavement might be dressed

In polyester raiment, cheap as chips,

But they are also human, are they not?

Just like their antecedents who forgot

Their fear and fought

For what they felt was right.   Such men 

Did not succumb, were not disturbed

As rugs were pulled from underneath their feet. 

And so it is that those who claim to think we should

Hold fast, each passing year to what is good,

Can practise their delusions and their tricks.

We do not see their treacherous deceit

Beneath tradition’s glow, beneath the soft

Moth pale and iridescent shine,

As every day they seek to undermine,

Those strong foundations upon which we stand

As smashing ancient truths we understood,

They hold abominations up aloft

For praise and to compel us to disown

Our silly, basic instincts.  We are banned

From speaking freely, and are shown

The error of our thoughts, derivative,

We’re told, from Fascism. For right is wrong,

There are no certainties,

Black’s white. Good, counter intuitive.