Reet Grand

Shopping trolley
filled canals,
empty pound land
shopping malls,
moorland grazed and
wind blown marshes,
empty mills filled
with second hand markets
Barkers
and hawkers,
gawkers
and morkers,
cobbled streets
and knocked off goods,
cheap meat vans
and fried foods
Ruddy faces,
pie n peas,
in steaming caffs
Weekly baths
and coal men strikes
Northern towns
where once proud
stood
to,
in turn,
turn back the flood