Robert M Francis Pass over
Occasional clink-squalls of metal on metal, the tram whispers
over bogs of lichens and mosses where ruins of factory tracks
sit between chewed up cars, withered rusts of dying foxgloves,
terraces and red brick mills. Now tourist hotspots where artisans
turned toil to song – home to meets where eager eyes were braced
for its own sake.
Now, my marketing company work from a barn, new media bred
from nouveaux riche neighbourhoods, riddled with stainless steel
and glass, faux plants and tokens of trade, my bluechipped barn
farms consultants for consultants and cuntsaltonts and …
In the distance the unseen lungs of the basin bubble in the matchstick
models of crisscross waterways. Where Baltic timber followed
the ebb and flow, where grain from four corners passed Detroit Bridge,
where rumbles clap an undercurrent, where a “proper pub” serves
its scotch eggs with balsamic dressing to twenty-four hour lawyers.
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