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My Northerly Womb

Gritted pavements chew neath worn sodden soles Dissipating cardboard inlaid repairs Gravel chews at my thrice darned old socks Absorbing trudged blisters weeping despair This old northerly town of sepia and grey Drains unborn hope from lowered blank eyes As winter chills with her misted damp breath Cobbled streets lay neath smog’s opaque disguise Worn cobbles pierce thinly veiled tarmac refurb’ Painting generations of Lowry bald souls The hoop and the football once soul of the streets Replaced by generations that queue for their dole Chiselled grey faces reminisce past Jarrow march Regional poverty plants roots in the north Black and white photos of stretched terraced slums Slip through time and with modern streets morph Factories boarded, silhouettes stripped of their roofs Deliberate was felt this themed disrepair Shadows of hope eroded within misted times grey Monotony a communities subconscious despair Yet this is my home, still my dirty old town Whining milk carts, belched thick diesel fumes The scented soot coughed from open slack fires Cradles and frames this, my northerly womb

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John Fleming

Date: 10/24/2015 2:31:00 PM

Very good, Stephen! I am from Warrington in Cheshire, myself. Ahhh...How these northern towns have changed. Gone the traditional industries, Smoking lounges in the pubs, kids playing football in the streets, homemade Go-Karts, corner shops, and red double-decker buses. Gone just about anything of character..Gone forever I daresay. Your poem bought so many distant memories flooding back. Many thanks, Stephen! My very best regards! :) john P.s A Seven.

Stephen Thom
Date: 10/24/2015 2:49:00 PM

Thanks for commenting John, there is a sadness to the disappearing character of our old towns but as long as there are old poets with reminiscent pens, maybe a little will survive!