Once almost a little village
Within the city’s bounds,
Huddled around the fish dock
With its own smells and sounds,
Streets of rows of terraces
All well kept and neat,
Pride shining through
Every worker Street.
Deckies, Filleters, Bobbers
All closely living there,
The Skippers and Mates
Breathing more refined air.
Overalled fish house workers
Mingle with and meet
Segged clogged bobbers
In the early morning street.
Then they pulled down terraces
Replaced with industrial estates
Rehoused to the city’s fringes
Splitting up families and mates.
And the fishing industry died
Trawlers tied up in the dock
And old Hessle Road trembled
Nearly died from the shock.
No more deckies, filleters, bobbers
All the fish houses long gone
As this once vibrant area
Learned to adapt and move on.
The once thronged Hessle Road
Seems near deserted these days
As the population slowly adapts
To the area’s very different ways.
Rayners, the fisherman’s pub,
Struggling to survive,
Has mementos of the fleet
To help keep its memory alive.
In an ironical gesture,
Sadly surveying it all,
There’s a mural of a trawlerman
Painted on a gable end wall.
See the wallowing of the man,
I think he's angry at the madman.
He finds it hard to see the girlfriend,
Shadowed over by the crazed gable end.
Who is that waddling near the dog?
In the park, by the pond I think he'd like to eat the frog.
She is but a perfect girl,
Admired as she sits upon a water’s curl.
She's not alone she brings a kitten,
a pet goldfish, and lots of Battle of Britain.
The goldfish likes to lick salt,
Especially one that's in the Pinault.
The man shudders at the nocturnal cheese
He want to leave but she wants the overseas.
This is the ADVENTITIOUS LIFE OF A WALLOWING MAN AND ALL THAT SURROUNDS HIM-
11/20/19
Written word by James Edward Lee Sr. ©2019