Such is Barnsley,
pitiful; cultural tundra of the North,
most women so hard
they have tattoos on their teeth
and faces insipid, gaunt.
Yet diamonds are found
in lumps of coal;
because of you I cannot leave this place;
for I am lost
in all that is beautiful
when sixty seconds
I spend in your grace.
© Copyright D. Archer October 2011
In his ears
he longed
to hear Longfellow;
taught Tennyson,
Keats and Chaucer;
What chance he
in fuckin’ Barnsley
where language is
coal mine coarser.
© Copyright D. Archer October 2011
Apologies for the language but this was written in anger after I watched a young father tell his son who innocently picked up a second hand book “I’m not buying no fuckin books”. It is the language of my home-town I am a little ashamed of the choice language.
My heart sank, the father stood with a can of lager and a half smoked cigarette refusing to expand his sons’ horizon for the want of 50 pence.
It is also sad that I was unable to buy the book on behalf of the child for fear of getting my face kicked in. Such is the mentality of my home town.
I don’t usually like colloquialism in poems but it does reflect the hard, ex-coal mining town that Barnsley still is; regardless of shiny bus stations and chocca-mocha latte coffees.
The ex mining town
called Barnsley in England,
South Yorkshire is
for reading Keats’ “To Autumn”
a little, wonderfully warmer;
I follow Keats’ “Bright Star”
and it illuminates my day;
it alleviates for one glorious minute
my coal deep pit of pain.
© Copyright D. Archer October 2011
Thanks to fellow blogger “The Bard on the hill” for posting “To Autumn” by John Keats, now go away and look up “Bright Star” by Keats and see how real poetry is written. Go on, do it now, I insist.
