"bradford" poems
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)
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 6:21 AM UTC
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
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 1:57 PM UTC
Tonight we’re aligned with the stars
I’m wearing Orion’s belt
You’re drinking in thirsty gulps from the big dipper
The little one’s in freckles on your chest
And now I can hear the wind chimes
On the porch
I can hear the leaves
Of the Bradford Pear
I can hear the cats and dogs and coyotes and deer and owls
Making nighttime noises
I can hear mom snoring in the house
For one of the last times
I can hear the trampoline springs creaking with age
And feel it bouncing and swaying under us
Like it did in its heyday
I can hear you sniffling, sister,
I can hear you crying
Your warm wet tears
Are drowning my ears
Like all those summers we did swim team
When I take your hand
It’s smaller than I remember
It’s Abby circa ‘99
Though you didn’t let me hold it then
And I never tried
Now our hair is curling in swirling halos
Around the same face
Mom’s face
We never did look like Dad
Now we’re gazing at the same stars
Under the same March sky
Thinking, saying, “God is good”
Saying, believing, “How can He not be?
When the sky looks like this”
Believing, knowing, that it’s true
Even while our hearts are rocks,
Our hands are clay,
Our minds are swarming
Teeming
Buzzing
Hives
But “God is good”
“How can He not be?
When the sky looks like this”
When our mother is a fish
How can He not be?
We know:
“God is good.”
While we’re reading the Braille of the sky
Two foxes slink by
Now we dismount the trampoline and go inside
Where we hear Mom snoring
For one of the last times
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 3:40 PM UTC
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.
Apr 14, 2023
Apr 14, 2023 at 3:09 PM UTC
Wickedness dances like a Chinese dragon
held high on poles by the grinning
It curls its tail and snakes around the minds
of admirers who see beauty in its gaping jaws
Flaccid and incapable, this billowing beast
intoxicates and seduces the frustrated and resentful
It dances in Kirachi, hoodwinks in Bradford,
and slips into the dark places in distracted minds
— this infernal idea more bilious and mephitic
than a komodo’s bite
It dances wildly in the confused thoughts of lost boys
who haven’t noticed its cunning wink
They sway and rock — utterly taken
far more mistaken — until stilled by the slap of death
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 4:10 PM UTC
Give a little bit of my Shangri La
back to me.
Lets recall the 99p Scotch best at JD Weatherspoons,
revisiting Bradford by National Express
because we saw "Bob Sue and Rita too" on Channel 4
and on a whim had to have
B&B; down Manning Lane.
Let's see tea shops show civic pride
serving a strong Bergamont.
No queue jumping,
spitting or cussing in the streets.
Lets not be afraid to care,
and go back to the early 1990s
on the cusp of the Premiership
to see Notts County verses Luton Town.
Their six pointer
with an overturned milk float to presage the desperation
and long before the aerobic internet entertained us.
Funded Public libraries
venturing openings on Sunday's
and thank Steg from
Scorpion records at High Wycombe,
grateful for all those post restantes.
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 4:54 PM UTC
Snow falls on the Bradford pears today
As I sit in this window
like a store front, deranged maniquin
Watching..
Those trees look like clouds
White, fluffy
But they can never float away
Tethered to the earth by roots and trunks
If one were to try and cut them free,
they would surely die
I think of the way snow flakes cover each already white, bloom
Like they're making love, after a long parting
Only to part again with the change of season
A chance encounter, between the blooms, and flakes
When the clouds scatter and the moon shines,
The flakes kisses will sparkle on the petals
and make love in a new way~A
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 12:59 PM UTC
The Bradford Pear died
Our children left home
The Maple out back
Is a nuisance
The Star Magnolia
Blooms early this spring
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
*Oyster white knights of the avenues
Of cloud laden repositories filled with
silver'd showers , of blown flowers begging for
green lush ground
Bicycles , pedestrians , stiff March breezes
Front porch neighbors , paper boy deliveries
Purple , pink and red skyways of dusk
Robins returning from the south , smoke returning
from neighborhood hearths , gas lighting o'er
manicured lawns
The first born star to call my own
To follow home* ...
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 4:52 PM UTC
POEM - PAPER FILES-II
Clumps of paper around my nest
What can be worse, and what is best?
No one’ll ever think me a genius
They think I’m just a total fanabulistus.
Files and records dwell in our living space
We'll be in a turmoil until most are erased
Much good info is contained here.
Files of many - you have no idea!
The Doomsday Clock now spins toward its close
Around the world one sees many foes
Rumors of war are rumors no more
Papers, files, all over the floor!
Learning new words, many new laws
The most recent gives me much pause
Transhumanism - Do check it on Google
This’ll surely leave your head in a noodle!
People live in my files all day long
I have poets, paupers, authors, Nazis, a full throng
I’ve got murderers, seducers, files of White Magic,
These tales, including emails, reveal much that is tragic.
Scandals abound to be found in my files
Even histories of those known very well
They’ve traveled a long way from us
Surely, now, dwelling in Hell.
Genealogy takes much space in 4-drawer files
The information stretches for miles and miles
Why must I collect dead dust no one sees?
Would that I toss ’em all, just like dead leaves.
Reading does nothing but make me write
Why o why can’t I finish this fight?
I create more as I go along.
Never, never, time for a song.
Writing gets better, but quite like a curse
Everything's quite good, but could get much worse
The Writer's game is not very cozy
Sometimes it appears to be pretty ****** lousy
The hall and bedroom, closets and all
Never see Light - Spring, Summer + Fall
Boxes, old clothing, day/night sight unseen
Time to get over it, and clean, clean clean!
Carol Rae Bradford-Amended 5:17 a.m.
Sunday, 4:00-4:34 a.m. Nov. 23, 2014
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 7:40 AM UTC
To age and die
Natural, beautiful
Meant
But for her,
Lain waste to no clock
Only her smile has turned ashen,
Pale,
For what to smile about
When all whom she loved,
Is long since past?
She sits under the Bradford pears
Watching the snow of white, falling petals
Remembering a hundred years ago
When the old downtown was new
The streets were dirt and brick
She remembers a warm August day
When she watched them paint a Lady
on the side of a new, brick building
To advertise Tuxedo Tobacco
A good day then
She goes there still, to look at that Lady
Even the mural gets to fade
But not she
She faces
The Ravages Of Time~Less
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 8:32 AM UTC
where I live
the blooming of the Bradford Pear
is always the first flower of Spring
a tree filled with tiny
bright white blossoms
raining petals like snow
a pastoral picture of seasonal beauty
scene in almost every suburban community
but the flowers give off
a powerful stench
like rotten fruit
or an infected wound
or a diseased crotch
that hangs in the air forever
like a fog of swampgas
I hate the smell of Bradford Pear
it can hit me from a block away
and stay with me for hours
pounding at my sinuses until
I think my head will explode
it overwhelms everything
for the first few weeks
of every Spring
and even though it makes me miserable
and even though I hate it
and even though it stinks all to hell
because it is the first sign of life
the first sign of Spring
every Spring
it always makes me feel
so happy
a delicious pain
reminding me
that I am alive
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 5:28 PM UTC