LETTER FROM HAWORTH

Poems do not always satisfy the soul,

The feel of cobbles underfoot is at this moment more

Than all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the unending vistas

Of the moor, an infinity of purity that excels even Mallarm?.

I sit on the cracked steps to the church, sipping tea

With my eye on the Black Bull where Bramwell worshipped

Until a mobile phone playing ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’

Disturbs my reverie and I notice the Big Issue seller

Can find no takers among the ernest camera-ready Japanese

And mid-life couple shuffling into tea rooms.

"We are here to please"

I long for the enduring love of a woman

Here is God’s glory-hole,

O, women, why are you all so angry?