Artist

Alexander Averin

Monday 11 June 2012

Leeds, (it's just a poem).




Leeds


I don’t live in Leeds, I die there, slowly
Banished there by my peers, or shall I just
be kind and call it my fate.  Leeds left deep
scars in my psyche when their team beat mine in
the FA Cup:  (Leeds 3, Crystal Palace 1).
Then, when a girl from Leeds joined my school
I learned what bluntness meant; it stayed with me.

My energies drain now in its suburbs.
At night I dream of the Kingdom of Elmet,
the forest of Loidis, sheep producing
white woollen cloth, flaxen fields of yellow-grey.
Finishing mills, giving way to foundries,
iron and industry incarnating to
Leeds and its locals; Loiners, blunt of speech,
hard of eye.  My southern softness  seems so 
out of sync so I walk by the Aire,
look to the Atlantic, escape to the
Pennines, my heart just  longing  for Wales.


Cait O’Connor

4 comments:

Frances said...

Cait, it's been far too long since I have left you a message. Please know that I have been visiting, quietly, treasuring beauty in your images and words, but feeling too pressed for time to thank you enough for your gifts.

xo

Anonymous said...

Ah Cait. Although not Welsh, my heart longs for Wales too, all the way from Australia!- my husband was kind enough to surprise me with tickets to travel there with him again a while ago.
I also often feel I belong among the rich ochre colours of Outback Australia and applied as a young woman to teach there, but was refused on the grounds it would not be safe.
So like your Leeds, I sit here and wonder how a person ends up in a city they don't really want to be in - family, marriage and employment for me I guess. All important factors.
I enjoyed your poem!

Mac n' Janet said...

Always enjoy your poems, how bleak Leeds now seems to me.

Dartford Warbler said...

Your poem brought back those early months when we first moved to Leeds, many years ago. After a while I grew to love the place and Yorkshire. Just in time for us to move south again!

I`m so pleased to have found your blog. Enjoy being free of work and having the time and space to become who you really want to be.