Friday 30 January 2015

Holmfirth: A Wintry Morning…

Morning ‘bus halts to

Suck in huddling commuters,

Then drives on.

Local stores lurk to

Prey on dawdling customers

But instead, snow drives in,

Thickening, then whitening

The jumble, the cluster

Of Holmfirth’s glum stone;

But the River Holme thrashes

Defiance, plunges and rushes

In its hurry to reach the Colne,

Hissing with all the fuss it can muster…

Mourning chimneys, bolt straight,

Stack in jutting redundancy,

As, high above,

Winter trees mock in lines,

A sweep’s brushes, a discrepancy.

Yet indeed, snow flurries through,

Thickening, then lightening

The pile, the muster

Of Holmfirth’s glowering stone;

But the River Holme crashes

Belligerence, lunges and pushes

In its scurry to join the Colne,

Cussing with its eddies, tossed in a cluster…

Awry, sombre, dislocated pixels,

Like sepia kaleidoscope beads,

The irreverent pieces of an austere wall,

Speak of unsettled souls, with no leads;

The snug church tower’s façade

With its blackened scars of death and flood,

Contrast with its pallid clock-face,

As inevitable chilled hands throb like spilled blood…

Pete Ray

January 2015

Being in Holmfirth, South Yorkshire, Thursday 30^th January.

This was the view from my window in the Old Bridge Inn and Coffee House…