A poor attempt at profundity, or —As the crow flies Rotherhamwards

This is my attempt at a more traditinal kind of poetry, an imagined scene from an aerial perspective over a bleak Sheffield.

A poor attempt at profundity

       or

�"As the crow flies Rotherhamwards

 

Street lights necklace the seven hills,

lambent in the velveteen night.

The city heaves itself to sleep,

shuddering with barbiturate alacrity.

 

The air turns another full rotation in its apathy,

catching litter and hope

and dispersing them impartially

to rivers, gutters, dead ends and

the clutches of young infants.

 

Weak platitudes fade as those who were once close part,

one to the station,

one to the rail tracks.

 

Two children near feral, by the river,

empty their palms into the traffic coned waters.

One throws stones

imagining he could dam the river in time.

The other races sticks

dreaming of where they might wash up.

 

The applause of falling slates,

denotes the return of the sportless homing pigeon

to a dilapidated house,

years too late.

The urban fox dismisses this lean vagabond.

He too is too late.

Too late for the open country,

for heath and moor.

His is a dustbin buffet and

hated for it,

the way we love to hate the less fortunate.

 

Two students gem the pavement with liquor bottles,

their spirits rising.

Arms flung over shoulders in mutual support,

heads knocking like a newton’s cradle,

they tumble up Conduit Road,

pause,

look back…

Street lights necklace the seven hills,

lambent in the velveteen night.