Ah, Yorkshire, thou art purer than Coventry;
and thy promises whiter; than my fluid poetry.
Thou art braver, prudent, and all the way more intelligent;
thy lands are mightier; and perhaps in every possible way-more imminent.
Thou art sincere-and so more delicate than wine, and thoughtful;
Thou adored my words, and made everything else healing, and more beautiful.

In my heart but there might have been no Yorkshire at all-
had I attended not one Coventry last fall.
I witnessed not-at t'at time, all t'is rude twilight-and toughness and madness;
and every chapped breath it had in its roughness, and hilarious-though indeed fake, felicity.
No soul has even bits of a heart, here, to forgive others' soreness,
No being wants to share; no human lives in joy, nor simplicity.
No delight indeed; as I stream my way through every roads;
Everyone is either busy with their selfishness or their coats.
No living is cared for; for humans are phantoms at night and on morns;
Vulnerability is mocked, and demised and often slyly torn.
Ah! Coventry is but a sphere of hell!
For even hell is still lighter when has it not hellfire;
As well cities are, when there is no scoundrel nor liar;
But Coventry is not at all tender;
Its wicked gasp is alive, and never to heartily surrender.
It falls for glory; it bows to such fears for pleasure;
And wanes by the light of whose death; the end of whose allure.
But thou art true-thou art as shy as every flash of virtue;
Thou art indeed-everything t'at is solemnly agreeable and brand new.
Ah, and just now-I had dreams of a fine image of thee;
Smiling within thy fullest verdure, bushes, and lavish undergrowth.
And thy summer is but vivid and friendlier;
Healing every sore heart, and turning 'em all, merrier.
Thou adored the nouns and verbs I wrote,
and admired such simple notions I quoted;
Thou shine upon me-asthe light that shall makest me grow
and the promising dim, faraway region, that lets me glow.
O, Yorkshire, this is still but too early in the transparent evening;
But I am deeply endorsed yet, by t'is poetry writing-
And with thy soul that remains but too witty,
Tearing me away, but with loveliness-
from my cautious present engagement,
Thy charms might be just too hard to bear,
for thy tongue is too sweet;
and thy veracity too chaotic, ye' imminent.
In thee shall I find peace-of that I am convinced,
Peace whose soul is calm, neat and on all occasions, careful-
Unlike t'is bustle which is at times perpetual, and sorrowful;
Unlike t'is very city of Coventry,
Which is damp with exultant bareness, and haziness,
In many ways exalted, but indeed too proud;
And its tongue which is blurred with sin and poison-
Its all-too-loud excitement makes everything but faint,
And at times sends my heart to exile, sends my heart to pain,
In every possible way too unlike thee,
With an imagery, and coaxing voices so sweet
Thou shall leave all my poems bright and freshly lit,
Even though I am still here, even though we are still yet-to meet.

Coventry is too proud and vibrant-yes, too vibrant,
Amidst its own foolishness, which sadly made itself formerly too elegant.
Too elegant to me-in various shapes, and keenly cloaked in unseen deceit,
But only by some beings, whom I was to meet, and my breath to greet.
And as I wake up to an early morning hour,
the plain summer strangely makes me thirst for honest water.
And should I love still-one intelligence t'at is so bitterly repugnant?
I shall certainly not; I shall turn to thee, Yorkshire, who is truer ye' far above, tolerant.
Ah, Yorkshire, but honesty is something Coventry promises not;
for its soul has been maliciously beheaded, and twitched,
It has been paled, corrupted, and despaired-
by its own claws, derived from the jaws of those evil souls
Veiled by their even still inhuman, disguises,
And shall still be wicked, otherwise.
In t'is sea of hate, and these waves of despondency,
I shall think of thee with tantalising depth and scrutiny,
Though thou art still imprisoned in my soul,
Thou who hath flattered and accepted me as a whole.
But Coventry is-still, accidental with some of its bindings,
For mortal as thou art, itself, and is unable to escape its fate,
Still I canst think only of the beauty of thy linings,
And upon thy lands shall I venture to fill my plate.
Ah, Yorkshire, remember that virtue is in thy hand,
but neither is vice-thy dormant enemy, is in its therein,
Virtue who is vile to all of t'is world's inconsolable men,
like in Coventry, as deemed it is, unreasonable and ungenerous, within.
Virtue which is tragically abandoned, in its pursuit of honour;
virtue which was rich, but flattened, and dismayed and disfigured
within the course of one unsupervised hour.
Ah, York, Yorkshire, when shall I ever taste the grandeur
And the very superiority of thy dignity?
For in yon picture, thou art still but a comely neighbour,
Which endorses and attests to my mute, yet unaffected-virginity.

Ah, but Coventry shall despise thee, and with its stubbornness
and overwhelming pride, shall jostle and taunt thee;
Shall defect and isolate thee-when I am but by thy side,
But God be with me still, and blind shall not, my virtuous sight.
Detesting and confronting thee for the remainders of years-as 'tis to be,
Which for thee lie ahead; as how hath it deluded me-just now!
I, who, disconcertingly, placed my heart within its sacred vow,
hath been robbed of my satisfactions, and utmost fortune,
All were perused in centuries and gone in one moon.
Ah, Yorkshire, shall I continue my poetry here-but call out endlessly to thee?
And shall I abandon this tiny caprice of mine-which is a fine, tiny desire of glory
And let myself on the loose, and for evermore be in search
of thee, whom I shall've lost-under the very indulgence of their mirth?
O, I think not!
For I shall mount my poetry-and achieve my silent dreams,
I shall take him with me, if allowed am I-to conquer him,
And make him and thee mine, just like I hath made my poetry,
And be thy light; and thy spiritual and endless reciprocal adoration
All day and night, at the end of our quest for destiny
Wherein I shall dwell, and thrive as my intellect be granted-its long-lost coronation.
O, Yorkshire, for within thy hands now I shall lie my faith-
and trudge along thy forking paths, unto the light of my fate.

Ah, Yorkshire, I am infatuated with these paintings-
these very paintings of thy lush green lands,
And of myself wandering and skulking idly about thy moors;
With my best frock, and his fingers, the one I love, entwined in my hand
As lights procured and on our storming out of yonder wooden doors.
I am shining like a bee is-upon the sweet finding of its honey;
but in whose tale 'tis like thee-to sweet and unpardonable to me.
Be with me, Yorkshire, and be with me forever, only,
As I leave behind this faint malice and commence my journey;
I shall be with thee, and my poems shall be free,
And t'is bitterness of winds shall be no more tormenting me,
Furthermore-be them what they desire to be;
But let me write; and play my song as beautifully as yon naive bee.

Ah, Yorkshire, and wait, wait again for me;
But before let me sink again into a deep sleep,
and tease thee again in my dreams;
Read me once more-the very passages of thy indolent poetry,
Take me out of my stiffness; swing me out of abhorrent Coventry.
Coventry shall be envious, and waiting forever for thy demise;
but honesty is honesty-and one that has no lies,
for thy virtue is clear as thy Western gem,
which is to God, shall always be virtue, all the same.

They’re really rockin’ in Bradford,
Off the Pennine Way.
Deep in the heart of Yorkshire
And round the Robin Hood’s Bay.
All over South Ossett
And down to New Farnley.
Roast beef and Yorkie Puddings,
God’s Own County, Yay!

Yull see ‘em rambling at Ilkley,
Right to the county line,
Sheffield steel and Wednesday –
A football team so fine.
Better still, Leeds United,
Greatest club of all time.

Yorkshire, Kings of Cricket,
Oh what a boon!
Get down that wicket,
We’ll be champs by June.
Down a ginnel or snicket,
See our Olympic Champs.
Coal Miner Picket,
Relight those lamps.

Racing pigeons and ferrets,
Stereotypes tha knows.
Over t’top in Lancashire,
Them there’s our foes.
We’re the greatest county,
Our pride really glows.
We know you all hate us,
It keeps us on our toes.

So we’ll be rockin’ in Yorkshire,
What more can I say?
Us Tykes 're as barmy as Barnsley,
So I’ll be on my way.

Paul Butters

(With due thanks to Chuck Berry and also The Beach Boys)

The Yorkshire Rose, elegantly perched on the bridge
This was not London, or the palace
nor Manchester, where Mancurians are free
nor Blackpool, where the beach swallows
Glasses, towels, mussels clinging to rocks
The Yorkshire rose, drawn upon the bridge
Bullet trains, leading distances
Almost unfathomable in this very spot
Harrogate, bath water
Spilling onto the street in natural sulphuric geysers
Burning
The Yorkshire Rose, fleeting in memory
In ghosts of the abbey nearby

You can yank me out of Yorkshire but I still want Yorkshire pudding
You can send me south but I’ll still go bargain hunting
Even though it is that I live in the South
I still have a hint of the northern mouth
Well that’s what the southerners say
But I’m sure to you it doesn’t sound that way
Anyway regardless where I am at
I’m Yorkshire bred and that’s a fact
To present this case to you
Some traits of yours; I have a few
I chose cheese to partner fruitcake
And forever search for savings to make
I always speak what’s on my mind
Which at times southerners think unkind
Though they themselves aren’t so good
When it comes to small talk in moments stood
A stranger is a momentary friend to a northerner
Whilst the southerner stands awkwardly waiting
I know which I would rather be
Let’s just say it has its’ own tea
So I am most pleased to see
That so much of you has rubbed off on me
For you my northern family
Are in my thoughts more than you know
And without you I would not be so

They’re really rockin’ in Bradford,
Off the Pennine Way.
Deep in the heart of Yorkshire
And all round Robin Hood’s Bay.
All over South Ossett
Down there to New Farnley.
Roast beef and Yorkie Puddings,
God’s County Yay!

Yull see ‘em rambling near Ilkley,
Right to the county line,
Sheffield steel and Wednesday –
A football team so fine.
Better still, Leeds United,
Greatest club of all time.

Yorkshire, Kings of Cricket,
Oh what a boon!
Get down that wicket,
We’ll be champs by June.
Down a ginnel or snicket,
See our Olympic Champs.
Coal Miner Picket,
Relight those lamps.

Racing pigeons and ferrets,
Stereotypes tha knows.
Over t’top in Lancashire,
Them there’s our foes.
We’re the greatest county,
Our pride really glows.
We know you all do hate us,
It keeps us on our toes.

So we’ll be rockin’ in Yorkshire,
What more can I say?
Us Tykes're as barmy as Barnsley,
So I’ll be on my way.

Paul Butters

(With due thanks to Chuck Berry and also The Beach Boys)
© PB 2\5\2016.  Slightly Amended 14\4\2023.

(poems from the Chinese translated by Arthur Waley)

Last night the clouds scattered away;
A thousand leagues, the same moonlight scene.
When dawn came, I dreamt I saw your face;
It must have been that you were thinking of me.
In my dream, I thought I held your hand
And asked you to tell me what your thoughts were.
And you said: ‘I miss you bitterly . . . “

As Helen drifted into sleep the source of that imagined voice in her last conscious moment was waking several hundred miles away. For so long now she was his first and only waking thought. He stretched his hand out to touch her side with his fingertips, not a touch more the lightest brush: he did not wish to wake her. But she was elsewhere. He was alone. His imagination had to bring her to him instead. Sometimes she was so vivid a thought, a presence more like, that he felt her body surround him, her hand stroke the back of his neck, her ******* fall and spread against his chest, her breath kiss his nose and cheek. He felt conscious he had yet to shave, conscious his rough face should not touch her delicate freckled complexion . . . but he was alone and his body ached for her.

It was always like this when they were apart, and particularly so when she was away from home and full to the brim with the variously rich activities and opportunities that made up her life. He knew she might think of him, but there was this feeling he was missing a part of her living he would never see or know. True, she would speak to him on the phone, but sadly he still longed to read her once bright descriptions that had in the past enabled him to enter her solo experiences in a way no image seemed to allow. But he had resolved to put such possible gifts to one side. So instead he would invent such descriptions himself: a good, if time-consuming compromise. He would give himself an hour at his desk; an hour, had he been with her, they might have spent in each other’s arms welcoming the day with such a love-making he could hardly bare to think about: it was always, always more wonderful than he could possibly have imagined.

He had been at a concert the previous evening. He’d taken the train to a nearby town and chosen to hear just one work in the second part. Before the interval there had been a strange confection of Bernstein, Vaughan-Williams and Saint-Saens. He had preferred to listen to *The Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. There was something a little special about attending a concert to hear a single work. You could properly prepare yourself for the experience and take away a clear memory of the music. He had read the score on the train journey, a journey across a once industrial and mining heartland that had become an abandoned wasteland: a river and canal running in tandem, a vast but empty marshalling yard, acres of water-filled gravel pits, factory and mill buildings standing empty and in decay. On this early evening of a thoroughly wet and cold June day he would lift his gaze to the window to observe this sad landscape shrouded in a grey mist tinted with mottled green.

Andrew often considered Berlioz a kind of fellow-traveller on his life’s journey of music. Berlioz too had been a guitarist in his teenage years and had been largely self-taught as a composer. He had been an innovator in his use of the orchestra and developed a body of work that closely mirrored the literature and political mores of his time.  The Symphonie Fantastique was the ultimate love letter: to the adorable Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress. Berlioz had seen her play Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (see above) and immediately imagined her as his muse and life’s partner. He wrote hundreds of letters to her before eventually meeting her to declare his love and admiration in person. A friend took her to hear the Symphonie after it had got about that this radical work was dedicated to her. She was appalled! But, when Berlioz wrote Lélio or The Return to Life, a kind of sequel to his Symphonie, she relented and agreed to meet him. They married in 1833 but parted after a tempestuous seven years. It had surprised Andrew to discover Lélio, about which, until quite recently, he had known nothing. The Berlioz scholar David Cairns had written fully and quite lovingly about the composition, but reading the synopsis in Wikipedia he began to understand it might be a trifle embarrassing to present in a concert.

The programme of Lélio describes the artist wakening from these dreams, musing on Shakespeare, his sad life, and not having a woman. He decides that if he can't put this unrequited love out of his head, he will immerse himself in music. He then leads an orchestra to a successful performance of one of his new compositions and the story ends peacefully.

Lélio consists of six musical pieces presented by an actor who stands on stage in front of a curtain concealing the orchestra. The actor's dramatic monologues explain the meaning of the music in the life of the artist. The work begins and ends with the idée fixe theme, linking Lélio to Symphonie fantastique.

Thoughts of the lovely Harriet brought him to thoughts of his own muse, far away. He had written so many letters to his muse, and now he wrote her little stories instead, often imagining moments in their still separate lives. He had written music for her and about her – a Quintet for piano and winds (after Mozart) based on a poem he’d written about a languorous summer afternoon beside a river in the Yorkshire Dales; a book of songs called Pleasing Myself (his first venture into setting his own words). Strangely enough he had read through those very songs just the other day. How they captured the onset of both his regard and his passion for her! He had written poetic words in her voice, and for her clear voice to sing:

As the light dies
I pace the field edge
to the square pond
enclosed, hedged and treed.
The water,
once revealed,
lies cold
in the still air.

At its bank,
solitary,
I let my thoughts of you
float on the surface.
And like two boats
moored abreast
at the season’s end,
our reflections merge
in one dark form.

His words he felt were true to the model of the Chinese poetry he had loved as a teenager, verse that had helped him fashion his fledgling thoughts in music.

And so it was that while she dined brightly with her team in a Devon country pub, he sat alone in a town hall in West Yorkshire listening to Berlioz’ autobiographical and unrequited work.

A young musician of extraordinary sensibility and abundant imagination, in the depths of despair because of hopeless love, has poisoned himself with *****. The drug is too feeble to **** him but plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by weird visions. His sensations, emotions, and memories, as they pass through his affected mind, are transformed into musical images and ideas. The beloved one herself becomes to him a melody, a recurrent theme [idée fixe] which haunts him continually.

Yes, he could identify with some of that. Reading Berlioz’ own programme note in the orchestral score he remembered the disabling effect of his first love, a slight girl with long hair tied with a simple white scarf. Then he thought of what he knew would be his last love, his only and forever love when he had talked to her, interrupting her concentration, in a college workshop. She had politely dealt with his innocent questions and then, looking at the clock told him she ‘had to get on’. It was only later – as he sat outside in the university gardens - that he realized the affect that brief encounter might have on him. It was as though in those brief minutes he knew nothing of her, but also everything he ever needed to know. Strange how the images of that meeting, the sound of her voice haunted him, would appear unbidden - until two months later a chance meeting in a corridor had jolted him into her presence again  . . . and for always he hoped.

After the music had finished he had remained in the auditorium as the rather slight audience took their leave. The resonance of the music seemed to be a still presence and he had there and then scanned back and forward through the music’s memory. The piece had cheered him, given him a little hope against the prevailing difficulties and problems of his own musical creativity, the long, often empty hours at his desk. He was in a quiet despair about his current work, about his current life if he was honest. He wondered at the way Berlioz’ musical material seemed of such a piece with its orchestration. The conception of the music itself was full of rough edges; it had none of that exemplary finish of a Beethoven symphony so finely chiseled to perfection.  Berlioz’ Symphonie contained inspired and trite elements side by side, bar beside bar. It missed that wholeness Beethoven achieved with his carefully honed and positioned harmonic structures, his relentless editing and rewriting. With Berlioz you reckoned he trusted himself to let what was in his imagination flow onto the page unhindered by technical issues. Andrew had experienced that occasionally, and looking at his past pieces, was often amazed that such music could be, and was, his alone.

Returning to his studio there was a brief text from his muse. He was tempted to phone her. But it was late and he thought she might already be asleep. He sat for a while and imagined her at dinner with the team, more relaxed now than previously. Tired from a long day of looking and talking and thinking and planning and imagining (herself in the near future), she had worn her almost vintage dress and the bright, bright smile with her diligent self-possessed manner. And taking it (the smile) into her hotel bedroom, closing the door on her public self, she had folded it carefully on the chair with her clothes - to be bright and bright for her colleagues at breakfast next day and beyond. She undressed and sitting on the bed in her pajamas imagined for a brief moment being folded in his arms, being gently kissed goodnight. Too tired to read, she brought herself to bed with a mental list of all the things she must and would do in the morning time and when she got home – and slept.

*They came and told me a messenger from Shang-chou
Had brought a letter, - a simple scroll from you!
Up from my pillow I suddenly sprang out of bed,
And threw on my clothes, all topsy-turvey.
I undid the knot and saw the letter within:
A single sheet with thirteen lines of writing.
At the top it told the sorrows of an exile’s heart;
At the bottom it described the pains of separation.
The sorrows and pains took up so much space
There was no room to talk about the weather!

.the English pronounce the Cornish town's name as: nookie... the **** is it, a Green Day album name, or a Limp Bizkit song? perhaps i'm too French in my pronunciation... quail... eggs... quay... qua-a... if i were Welsh i'd write you the name like so... newyddquaa... but no... but no, has to be nookie... like buggering a ******* chimp... quail eggs... see how language becomes mutated? nothing is apparently, certainly, stable... always the permutation of a flux... i must have ingested a little of the French concept of: je ne sais quoi when learning English... come one... nouveaucarrière: new quarry... nouveauquai... nookie?! seriously?! Q, Q... Quail eggs... quay... new... quay... maybe the usage of hyphenating words into compounds needs to be revised in the english sprechen... ******* mutation... nookie... ****** ******, + a ******* wookie, walking carpet ride worth the name Chew-a-Buck-back-up! i'd settle for: new-key... some sort of variant of a maritime honing device for locating ships sending distress signals during storms... but... no... but hey... it's authentically Welsh territory... Cornwall is, after all... a pre modern extension of Wales... nookie this: shotgun my *** while is spew rhetoric concerning the health benefits of applying feces instead of ****** cream for the benefits of: no one.

over 20 years spent living on these isles,
and i never made the connection -
Welsh nationalism could only work
if you included Cornwall -
   given that Cornish is very much:
a southern dialect of Çymru -

    i guess... i'm not sure...
    let's put it to the etymological filter...
beginning with primary words:

black
           du   (Cornish)
      du   (Çymru)

    red
       rudh (Cornish)
      coch (Çymru)

    white
          gwydn (Cornish)
gwyn (Çymru)
      
        i guess that's how etymology works,
a shared origins story...
etymology is best
  examined with primary words,
basic nouns / adjectives...

that was the adjective test...
now for the noun test:

sun
          howl (Cornish)
  haul (Çymru)
      
  moon
   loor (Cornish)
    lloer (Çymru)...

    sky
               ebron (Cornish)
   awyr (Çymru) -
   ah...
      now we see what becomes from
etymological deviation...
the sky has to have more
inherent connotations
of a religiosity as the resting place
of sort...

i'm sure that sea, earth, water,
and fire, are very much akin
or mountain...
but i could be wrong...

sea
    mor (Cornish)
  môr (Çymru)
        
earth
    dor (Cornish)
   ddaear (Çymru)

   water
         dowr (Cornish)
      *dŵr (Çymru)

fire
          tan (Cornish)
    tân (Çymru)

mountain
   menedh (Cornish)
         mynydd (Çymru) -

ah... well then...
that explains the separatist movement
of Cornwall akin
to the Spanish Basque or
the Catalonia...

  white cross on a black flag...
they're ******* Welsh down
in Cornwall!
   i was eating a Welsh pasty
all along!
           oh... i see...
  
  that's why they're separatists
down there...
but there's one word that's
crucial in all of this,
given the emblem is
on the Welsh flag...

  dragon...
**** me!
       there's an etymological source
for the word in English...
and, it comes from?
Cornish!

   draig (Çymru)
  dragon... in ******* Cornish!
**** me...

what's... snake?
   serpont (Cornish)
    neidr (Çymru)...

   there are similarities though...
blatant ones...
which explains the separatist
sentiment of the Cornish people...
they are like
the Hindu corp
of the Urdu speaking Welsh...
high Welsh and low Welsh...

nice to know...
thank god i didn't make the brash
etymological decision to
find the long lost cousins
of a shared source
akin to "abstract" words,
like...

        gallos-power-gallu...

****!

          g­od?
       DUW | WUD

well... god is a universal word,
and it matches...
  duw is god in Cornish,
and in Çymru...
   as it is also Allah on Malta...
funny as the fact that Malta
and it's Knights Hospitaller
cross of St. John of
                                 1567.

20 ******* years on these isles -
and only now i realize
why the Cornish are separatists...
they're Welsh...
   in disguise,
under the guise of a tourist
hot spot that's "nookie":
                       i.e. Newquay...

come to think of it...
    even though i'm living in England...
i interacted more with
the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots...
than i have with the English...
    i'm starting to think that...
if i don't make my way to
Yorkshire...
  or Newcastle...
then i lived in a country...
where the supposed countrymen
of said name... never existed!
ha!

well, in english you'd never really know
that Cornwall was once part of Wales,
given that Wales, isn't in the name
Cornwall: but that's in English...

in Polonaise?
        well... Wales / Walia (that double-u
  or rather, the double-v,
   since... erm: ωμέγα?)
         ergo?
      Cornwall / Kornwalia...
      probably the most beautiful part of
England you can begin to imagine...

aside...
   the current debate over "the pond" in
h'america... tuition fees, student debt...
as much as the h'americans love to gloat
and boast this that and the other...

i'm looking at myself...
    i went to university, studied chemistry,
and history...
   3rd year? 12 hours per week in
the laboratories...
three tiers of chemistry:
a.  physical - i hated physical chemistry,
it's so un-chemical...
   too much physics / mathematical
*******, so obviously i was weak at it...
b. inorganic chemistry...
    something that mingles with
   geology / metallurgy...
   eh... so so... it was o.k. and finally
c. organic chemistry...
   my strongest route, my faustian dream...
and so much like cooking,
so much so that... well: heston blumenthal...
maybe that's why i love cooking
so much, since it reminds me of
organic chemistry...
   anyways, i digress...
      back when i studied...
  and labour was in power with their:
education, education, education mantra?
that's what was still great
                  about britain...
the last stand as it were,
   ****, i still remember tha handing over
of hong kong...
    fee, per year? 1,250 quid...
                      that's it...
student loan, 3,000 quid per year...
   i actually did manage to live
             on the 3,000 with enough money
spare to do weekend away trips to paris,
stockholm, barcelona etc. - and god:
how i loved to travel alone,
bumping into strangers in hostels...
and the best part?
    i don't have to repay my loan until
i earn over 15,000 quid per year...
and since i'm not earning that...
                  the loan will be annuled after
30 years...
   mind you... a really **** year to go
to university and become a british citizen...
since... in scotland... e.u. citizens didn't
pay tuition fees!
      hence the massive surge of the polans
circa 2005...
                                 so: america, **** yeah!

but on a night like this,
esp. in the evening prior to the night itself,
there's that surge in electricity in the air...
you're walking to the supermarket
and the most mediocre magic happens...
sonny rollins' blues in your ears
you pass a street lamp and it gets switched
on by the grid...

                   it's only special because
your're listening to jazz and when you listen
to jazz and promenade...
you might as well be as content as if
walking a yorkshire terrier...
    
   while on the way back, instead of your
usual beer... you buy yourself...
a rowntrees ice lolly...
    and you eat that... smirking, feeling
                                                 like a badass.

p.s. the best thing i received from
the university wasn't even the degree...
a chance to play squash, mountain climbing
(glen coe was a beau)...
         a t-shirt...
since, once i left: a self-teaching discipline.

The Yorkshire accent
sounds pretty rough
"T" doesn't exist
unless you from Bradford
then you can't pronounce things propperly
and you say Bratfd
and the "o" lasts too long
the note is held on
now you knooow
how two letters are pronounced
go learn the dialect
not heard down soulth