Poetry

FIRST VILLAGE OF THE PENNINE CHAIN

First

village of the Pennine

Chain / Veined with skinny up-bank

lanes / Winding byways pinched between / Old

drystone walls tossed with green / Chapels frowning

down on pubs / And Sunday Bingo in the Working Mens’

Club / Grand, owd, worked-out wench / Resting on your bedrock bench

/ Through mizzly days in early spring / And puthery days hot summers bring

/ Lost in the mist when Autumn’s come / Or shawled in the silks of the setting

sun / Warming your toes these frosty nights / At your embered hearth of far town lights.