NEWCASTLE - NORTHUMBRIAN CITY
Half-English, half-Scot: martial roots in the past,
Newcastle - once dark from its coaly drama -
A breathless place ever ready for change.
Shudder at the Keep and Black Gate’s near defeat
By the march of Victorian railway builders ;
In narrow streets now widened,
Shiver with winds from sea or moors.
Tyne, father of this town
Famed for guns and ships,
Is o’erleaped by a platoon of steel bridges
Grabbing the south bank, binding the city to England.
NORTHERN ENGLAND
Steep hills and sudden
Gouged by ice, and water-formed -
This is no civilized landscape gentle
With demesne and orchard
And sun-kissed downland copses;
It is the terrain of warfare,
Of Northumbrian tearing at Scot,
Of Hadrian walling off the terrifying Pict,
Where the sea is held by Marsden’s cliffed face
And Cullercoats huddles in fear of a storm.
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Other poems of mine, similar to this, are available at
https://www.fictionmagazines.com/magazines/five/