Newcastle


The alleyways where we’d hide
from prowling policemen.


The corners where tramps
could be comfortable.


All the meandering places
for twilight walks have gone.


At times the ghosts were real,
Carriages on Sundays at All Saints.


Voices shouting through arches.
The square of Holy Trinity
Now a place for quiet meditation.


This was my city
but now the concrete belies
all the tales and stories


now the earthdiggers defy
the rattling carriages.
Only the moon is left unchanged.


But not untouched.


                            


Dorothy Neil






Star Over Lindisfarne


Cold star,
Winking down the rolling vertigo of sky,
Here I am, alone,
With nothing between us but the pulsating void of night.


Beneath the naked sky,
I have come to you.
Washed by waves of night,
Encircled by the heaving purple sea,
Bathed in spangled night-brightness across the jagged dunes
I have come,
And you don’t care


My eyes burn in the night wind;
My heart burns –
And you, cold star, inanimate,
need no love.
Yet you and I are intimate.


The great black castle lurches behind me:
Heaving, eerie, into the sky,
As if to weigh me to the Earth.
But you, star,
You and I are pulled together.
Forever apart, we hurtle through the universe.
You and I are intimate.






Roger Harvey