The City Of Of York, Haworth, Et Al Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1.The City of York

The Jorvik Vikings of great Odin’s tribe
Erased by time’s eviscerating tide
The monks of Micklegate, the city cats
Carved round the town to rid the place of rats
Live on in wood and stone, not flesh and blood
Nothing withstands degeneration’s flood
The Roman city of Eboracum
Now beats to rhythms of a different drum
The dust of a dead Roman legionary
Mixed with a Saxon chieftain’s emissary
The Shambles, written in the Domesday Book
No longer runs with blood from butcher’s hook
Under the turf, Dick Turpin’s skeleton
Grins at the irony of future gone
By Clifford’s Tower ghosts wail at eventide
Of cornered Jews, hounded to suicide
Here, Henry Hotspur’s head on Traitor’s Gate
Hung, warning all who challenged crown and state
Richard of York and proud Northumberland
Too, joined the ranks of the beheaded band
The worldly wind through streets and byways blows
Everything comes, alights a while, then goes


2. FourMysteries of York

The Horn of Ulf
The Monkey’s funeral
The Green Man
The Wicked Bible

Four mysteries of York I’ve not explored
High in the Cathedral Bell Tower
Perhaps the Green Man reads the Wicked Bible
At the Monkey’s Funeral
While as a parting paean,
The Horn of Ulf blows
Keening, down the aisles

3. Esholt, Emmerdale

The wind blows under the standing cows
It’s chilling their nether regions
Under the parasol shade of trees
Young midges dance in legions

The cottages lining the rural roads
Are lilac hung and sooty
At the Woolpack Pub on a wooden bench
The tourists hug their booty
Of Heartbeat beakers and Esholt mugs
With Emmerdale key-rings jingling
By a great horse chestnut’s Ancient boughs
The fake with the true is mingling

High in the beech trees, thrushes trill
Their woodland solos singing
Better than soap stars fading thrill
Is the copse where a blackbird’s winging!

4. Haworth

A black dog straddles a carcass on the moor
Ripping the tender sweetbreads from a deer

This is the country of the Pendle witches
Of marsh and mire, of millstone, grit and hare
Where wind can turn your innards inside out
On crags and peat hags bleak and desolate
Gut-wrenching gales that sear Top Withens bare

A forest of gravestones crowds the parson’s gate
Consumption gained admittance uninvited
The guest that dogged the Bronte house for years

Within the parsonage, ghosts throng the rooms
Emily, fallen asleep at the kitchen table
Pen in hand, beside the onion peelings
Charlotte, scrubbing the flags of Bramwell’s vomit
After his night’s debauch at the Black Bull Inn
Pat Bronte wooing women who would reject him
The fated tread of sisters’ failing footsteps
Outside, the cobbles dark with soaking rain

5. An English Field

An English field, pool-table flat
Supports an English sheep
I think it counts the passers-by
To help it fall asleep

6. May Time

Daffodil’s torn her April frock
Butterfly, harebell, dandelion clock
Bluebells nod in the daisied dew
The land lights up when May peeks through