Dudley, a black country town
the birthplace of the industrial revolution
where foundries thumped
and coal and limestone pumped
A ghost town ****** dry
by Merry Hill
a commercial giant
treading on local enterprise
killing it's trader's hope
until they couldn't cope
John Dudley from his grave turned
as his castle was raised to the ground
by parliamentarians in a coup
a ruin, now turned into a zoo!
A suffering town screaming for survival
not taking a nap for a place on the map
The home of Aynuk and Ayli
mythical characters who *****
in famed colloquial dialect kitsch
The museum packed with bold
black country tales
from glass blowing bubble
to blacksmith's trouble
The ayle, the doorstep sarni's
cow pies and canal barges
Salt of the earth men
who often pen
poems from their working class den
A concrete town
grey, dank into practicality sank
but if you get the chance to meet
any of the inhabitants
you'll be in for a treat
as the warmth in their hearts
will melt any thoughts of revolution
and cleanse your soul
of all pollution.

I can't see into the future
But, I know someone who can
She's a gypsy from the midlands
And, well, she looks just like a man

She says her name is Heather
But, to me she'll be a Hector
She said she had an accident
But, by god...it nearly wrecked her

One eye stares, it doesn't move
And this one is the best
The other follows you around
It never leaves your chest

She reads tarot, tea leaves and the bones
She's a reader of your life
She said she's still not married
I can't imagine her a wife

She'd know just what you're thinking
She'd know a lie before it's told
And if she's ugly nowadays
Imagine her when she gets old

The people go to see her
when the caravans arrive
She will read for twenty dollars
Her tent opens at five

If you want to know your future
Just take notice, listen close
Because her lips are slightly puffy
And she whistles through her nose

She's bent over looking downward
On her left side there's a ****
On her cheek there is a goiter
Behind her ear there is a lump

She weighs in at 300
Doesn't stand past 5 foot tall
But if you want to know the future
Then she's the one to call

She's an old afflicted gypsy
Has a daughter known as Marge
Says she's wanted up in Bristol
She's a small medium at large

Rose of your ear,
Lantern in your eyes,
Forest of branching hair,
In Inverness of your midlands,
I shall broach lit vernal deltas,
Kiss deep into darkling depths,
Climb the leaved trunks of thigh,
Drunk in the moisted, muted sighs
Of promise, tendered to surrender,
I shall know your ripened *******,
As bloom of moon paints moons
At night, I will be ****** in milk—
That offers itself to leeching babe,
With little, lithe fingers you rake one,
A wan vagabond, *****, homeward,
I shall know your flowing wetness,
Below my desert, with purpose,
I am lost, in sleep and dream,
May I never wake, may I
Sleep, never, may eye
Always open, keep
In tableaus of oil,
Strokes, hues,
Glittering
Of you.

Delivered to us by an optimistic gentleman in a black Stetson cap
who spent his days waving village traffic down with an open hand,
it's been four years since you were sat on the bookshelf in Kath's house.

You stood proud, surveying the fine china made across the border
wrapped up in donated newspaper articles and pristine hand-me-downs,
while my inky fingers welcomed regulars who only ever looked around.

Each weekend we were greeted by bright smiles set in permanent shadow.
Sometimes I declined banknotes on the street for carrying dismantled tables.
I'm still searching for namesakes when perched on local stones above sea level.

Friends like Elvis were divisive figures due to their signature tobacco smells.
Under a green bus shelter, I laughed at his frown about a Midlands town.
Thinking about the rows of vacant church seats still leaves me cold

even now. As I watch needles drop onto rocks and a solitary shell,
your frame shrivels daily and bends you crooked like a question mark.
Oh, Eric - will I ever meet your father again to discuss your burial?

Someday...
I want to live in a house with a blue door.   [My house has a brown wooden door]
By the sea, in the southern coast, with a
wooden fire to help keep warm.   [I live in the West Midlands and couldn't care less bout the fire]
Have a baby girl and a baby boy with
curly blond hair, honey brown eyes,
and fair sun struck skin.   [I have black hair, black eyes and brown skin]

Today...**
I hope you text me back!   *[I always text first]

This poem was witten by my godfather Hilair Beloc 1870-1953

When I am living in the midlands
That are sodden and unkind
I light my lamp in the evening
My work is left behind
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea
And its there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells
Their skies are fast and grey
From their castle walls a man may see
The mountains far away

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong
A rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along
The have the secret of the rocks
And the oldest kind of song

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise
They get their laughter from the loud surf
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our sister the spring
When over the sea she flies
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet
She blesses us with surprise

I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there
And along the skyline of the Downs
So noble and so bare

A lost thing I could never find
Nor a broken thing mend
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end
Who will be there to comfort me
Or who will be my friend

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald
They watch the stars from the silent folds
They stiffly plough the fields
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed

If ever I become a rich man
Or if ever I grow to be old
I will build a house with a deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold
And there shall the Sussex songs  be sung
And the story of Sussex told

I will hold my house in the high woods
Within a walk of the sea
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me

.
Rose of your ear,
Lantern in your eyes,
Forest of branching hair,
In Inverness of your midlands,
I shall broach lit vernal deltas,
Kiss deep into darkling depths,
Climb the leaved trunks of thigh,
Drunk in the moisted, muted sighs
Of promise, tendered to surrender,
I shall know your ripened *******,
As bloom of moon paints moons
At night, I will be ****** in milk—
That offers itself to leeching babe,
With little, lithe fingers you rake one,
A wan vagabond, *****, homeward,
I shall know your flowing wetness,
Below my desert, with purpose,
I am lost, in sleep and dream,
May I never wake, may I
Sleep, never, may eye
Always open, keep
In tableaus of oil,
Strokes, hues,
Glittering
Of you.

Poem Number Three from Edna's alter ego, Count ORLOK

O how the lust for virgins' blood rages through my veins,
My thirst for the wondrous elixir of human gore is all-engulfing!
I rise at dusk from my noisome grave, drooling with anticipation
And I soar upwards into the night sky like a bat out of Hell
(which is what I am, so it's no ******* exaggeration is it?).
I go to search out new victims in a new place as my old haunts
Are rather depleted following my ravages on their inhabitants,
But the foul miasma emanating from Wolverhampton's suburbs
Is enough to make me throw up last night's supper on my tuxedo,
And it totally kills my ******* appetite stone ******* dead.
With a shrieked *"The West Midlands Conurbation ***** big time!"
I fly off in disgust, a steam of diarrheoa trailing after me,
Like brown stardust.

.
Rose of your ear,
Lantern in your eyes,
Forest of branching hair,
In Inverness of your midlands,
I shall broach lit vernal deltas,
Kiss deep into darkling depths,
Climb the leaved trunks of thigh,
Drunk in the moisted, muted sighs
Of promise, tendered to surrender,
I shall know your ripened *******,
As bloom of moon paints moons
At night, I will be ****** in milk—
That offers itself to leeching babe,
With little, lithe fingers you rake one,
A wan vagabond, *****, homeward,
I shall know your flowing wetness,
Below my desert, with purpose,
I am lost, in sleep and dream,
May I never wake, may I
Sleep, never, may eye
Always open, keep
In tableaus of oil,
Strokes, hues,
Glittering
Of you.

I awake before dawn and call out to the Moon,
But the Moon is missing, she has other duties to attend to.
I sleep fitfully, aware that something is missing.

I awaken at dusk and call to the Sun,
But the Sun is missing, he has other lands to shine upon.
I wake with uncertainty, aware that something is missing.

I wake up in the midlands of night, in the close darkness
And I realize then that there is no longer anybody to call out to;
Whether I sleep or wake again is no longer important.

I send word to the Sun not to awaken me.
I send word to the Moon not to expect me-
I must go where light and darkness can freely mix,

And where things grow, touchless beneath a hidden sky;
Nothing is not there that should be,
Nothing is there that should not be:

And I am my own Moon, mirrored Suns shining from every secret eye.

1

At Lunch

West Midlands Wendy
dining out, alone
at St Peter’s on
their Saturday special
of salad and quiche.
Just a few hours
from the hotel weekend
(with a show), and you have to go
in half an hour’s time.
Page-boy cut
your hair once fair now grey,
you're slim, but slight
though pleasantly breasted,
pigeon-feet on the upper lip,
a thick gold band on those
careful hands steering knife and fork
to clean the plate of coleslaw.
Then, with darting eyes,
a few experimental words,
you’re gone. Oh, Wendy.
Such a solitary soul;
your shy smile haunts me still.

2

A Montepelier Moment

After tea at Betty’s
this woman of my heart,
fresh from a talk
to embroidery ladies,
and now replete
on jasmine tea
and a chocolate bombe,
braves the shop
with clothes of her dreams
hanging on rails  - a SALE no less.
Her eyes alight with possibility:
‘. . . there might be something.’

There is . . .

Gingerly from the curtained cubicle
this grey frock appears
wearing her beauty. Exactly.
Before the full-length mirror
we saw this slight miracle of linen,
scooped neck, gathered waist,
storm grey (with those necessary pockets
for phone and hanky). Perfect.
Just as she was then, as she is now;
this woman of my heart.


3

Before a Watercolour by Arthur Rackham

As individual as trees . . .
Perhaps we are
anthropomorphic -
as in Rackham’s painting
here on the gallery wall
two stand, proud and tall
against a fair-weather sky,
lately autumned in a
London park.
Leaves present,
but on the fall.

Mother and school-child,
he capped, she cloched, they
hurry below these trees
as others, be-pramed, dog-led,
unlingering, cross and pass
homeward; to spear a crumpet
or two ‘next an open fire,
a time before television’s
constant noise and flicker
took away the tick
from the parlour clock.


4

Before a Portrait of Suki by Tom Wood

There you were
as I remember
short red hair,
the forward-falling mop
over brow, not gaunt
like that unclothed self,
but rich in line of living
for the next word,
the better phrase,
an almost sentence
nearly right, a stanza
just just so, but . . .
without nakedness
(her daily dress)
this model shows
an arresting face,
deep eyes,
bold cheeks,
firm mouth.
A portrait stilled into life.