Hyem
Home
She welcomes with a smile as wide as the Tyne:
This city celebrates different voices.
Her daughters sold clothes, second-hand at Sandgate
as the boats sailed like long-lost lovers into Dean Street,
keeping their promise.
Reborn, her lassie sings a brand new song,
silencing the battalion of buses
that bully past the building societies,
while the lads that once danced for their daddies
push bairns in buggies, with one hand.
And still, people remain puddled
by the play of her spirited, underground rivers
that flow, like lifeblood right up to Spital Tongues.
She is a carnival of bridges skinning a heron-coloured sky.
Flooded with pride, she lands her logo
like kisses, on lamp-posts in Grey Street.
Catherine Graham
Dad
Sometimes he'd bring home
samples
of brand new chocolate bars
and mis-shaped
wafer biscuits in a silvery tin.
His big delivery van
would roll up
onto the cobbles and mmm
the smell of Rowntrees jelly
on his tall brown gaberdine.
Catherine Graham
