TYNESIDE POETS!

TYNESIDE POETS!

Monday 31 May 2010

poetry by catherine graham


























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