two rivers meet

MORE FROM 'POETRY NORTH EAST'

THE WAY TO ALSTON

On top of the Pennines, the way turns wild;
The bracken breaks through the grassed hillside,
And the road falls like a dancing girl
Flinging her hair and swinging

Down to Staward Pele
To tunnel in trees of quiet secrecy
And ghosts of hidden animals.

And up onto the drizzled fells
Where rivulets scar the barren mounds,
The road twists childlike to the valley's side
Dependent, searching support.

But Alston's mountains reach the sky:
Adults, unashamed
Of their force and stature.
Stone walls tumble like brocken shackles:
These hills are bondage free
And of unshakeable identity.


WENDY ZOULA


REVELOPMENT


Like Wellsian Martian War-machines
The cranes occupy Newcastle,
Dribbling buildings ugly as money
Across this reluctantly human town.


MICHAEL STANDEN


THE INVALID


I'm surrounded by brick.
Brick walls,
                                      Brick houses;
Not a green stick visible.
Brick, with its autumn-tint
Of nicotine,
                                      Denying summer
Like a faded print.

How like an immigrant
In quarantine,                 
                                      Brick curbs
My green exuberance;
Though summer's pungency
                    Wafts strong as mint.


CYRIL PATTERSON

Memory Tree

Tree

Determined to be

A shrine?

Passers by

Along the by-pass

Pass by

Sorry rose bouquet

Still wrapped in cellophane

Twine tied

By a drunk it seems

About the knotted trunk,

Which also displays

A poem,

Washed out

Through

Stanzas of tearful rain,

And a few

Photographs

Bleaching to greys.

German cemeteries,

Predisposed

To the disposal

Of their Great War dead,

Are lead tinted,

Not blessed

Short order lawns

Set

With serried

Rank on rank

Of whitewash crosses

Right dressed.

Gravestones

Are grey stones

Beneath

Sombre oaks

Grown full height

For spirits

To soak

Like sap

From saps

In which the bones lie,

Shell shattered,

Upwards

Through scattered clouds

Into the limitless sky.

Memory

Sinks deep roots

Seeking nourishment

To feed shoots

That,

Season by season,

Seem evermore slender,

Liable to wither.

Remembrance tree,

Hitherto

Merely a tree,

Has no reason

To serve,

As bonds that bind

Fray through

Releasing

Decapitated flower stems,

Words

And pictures,

Ceasing

To bear the weight of them

All.

Here Woden

Once hung Christ-like

Fearing the fall,

Spurned,

Waiting for when

Crows returned.

                        Dave Alton