Our exciting new digital poetry project, Connect2Poetry, is coming very soon – watch this space! View a map of the walking routes, get the app, and see the poems and photos other people have created using the app.
The app helps you to create your own instant poems, while you’re out for a walk along the Connect2 network of paths and cycle routes around Rochdale. Keep fit and creative – what more could you ask for!
In co-operation with Turn On Social, The Maskew Collection, CTC Rochdale, and Just Poets
Seven Guardians
White turbines churning, lazy
On dark Peninne hills
While seven sisters guard the valley
Where weavers in 1844
Pioneered equity
Now East and West bound
Traffic doesn’t see
The motorway rumbles
The long grass still rustles
And the songbirds break through
© Seamus Kelly, 2012
Between
High hedges hide the secret places
Between nature and men’s meddling
Quiet places beside
Ivy clad cottages
Leading to
Victorian terraces and
Batch-built estates
And a present-day traveller
Traces history’s footsteps
© Seamus Kelly, 2012
The Larks
Skylarks soar their vertical columns
Echoing chimneys long gone
Yellow machines move earth
Tall cranes lower preformed concrete
And industry is reborn
In a northern town
Seat of a co-operative revolution
And the motorway rumbles
The long grass rustles
And the songbirds always break through
© Seamus Kelly, 2012
Bulrushes
Water lily pads fringe dark deep water
The heron stands
By the tall bulrushes
Statue still
Strikes
A knife blade splash
Languid ripples radiate
Slow wing-beats loft high
And the motorway rumbles
The long grass rustles
And the songbirds break through
© Seamus Kelly, 2012
Subway
Weavers’ cottages and
Ellenroad’s tall smoking stack
Overlook the hidden entrance
As walkers, cyclists and horses
Pass under fast traffic
Frequent frustrated queues
Heading North, South, East and West
The motorway rumbles
The long grass rustles
And the songbirds break through
© Seamus Kelly, 2012
AND WORDS
Take these words, for they are now yours
to do with as you will;
To assemble as a marching force
or to leave as sentinels standing still.
Take these words and keep the change
for they are here in all conditions;
Their order may become deranged
and they may lose their definition
Take these words: take them far away.
Do not be tempted to preserve them.
Allow these words to have their say
for we writers merely serve them.
© Norman Warwick, 2012
ARE WISHES
By the lake stands a tree that grants all children a wish
and to grown-ups, too, if they believe in this.
A child unafraid of wonders to behold,
Jonathan was wise at six years old
and when grandfather whispered, “tell your wishes to me,”
he said he could not, else it never would be.
When grandfather asked, thirty years on, if those wishes came true
Jonathan replied, “I don’t know. I wished them for you.”
© Norman Warwick, 2012
A million stars faded in daybreak sky
as world emerged from night time black.
He fumbled his last cigarette from a crumpled pack –
inhaled for ever, and with head tilted back
blew a perfect ring around pale moon.
So quiet he could hear a new born morning cry,
as Time itself lay down to sleep,
he counted promises he had failed to keep,
hung down his head and began to weep
for a perfect poem he would never write
© Norman Warwick, 2012
THERE
He told her
“poets tell the truth, until they need a rhyme.”
He quoted Bob Dylan
and borrowed from Townes Van Zandt
and Wordsworth and Blake in merry dance
and Armitage and Sheers of the modern day
allowed him to always have his say.
There they are.
The Princess and the magpie thief
offering his steals.
Noticed only by moon and stars
an invisible angel plays acoustic guitar
and ghosts of lovers speak in codes
whilst dancing down these muddy roads.
© Norman Warwick, 2012
See
The half-grown, crook-backed child
Freedom-drunk for one half-day.
Kick-boxers, cock-fighters, Prince Charlie’s men
Searching for fools and runaways.
And
There! In the throng, the Methodist,
Stern of face and solemn.
Revolutionists, Calvinists.
Dreaming of better tomorrows.
© Eileen Earnshaw, 2012
And
Is that Byron’s long black cloak?
And poor, sad, hanged Valentine Holt?
There! ugly Ailsa with her love-child’s coffin
Grieving her way to Whitworth.
© Eileen Earnshaw, 2012
Historical note: all three characters mentioned in the poem are real, not only Byron (who was in fact 6th Baron Rochdale). You can find out about them at the local history archive at Touchstones, Rochdale. A more detailed note about them is coming soon.
Industrial Revolution
My heart is tarnished as we pass
a rusted chimney against a blue sky.
Is industry dead? When did this town die?
The silence of the road rings in my ears…
until, where South Street and East shake hands,
sounds and sights lift the funeral veil:
a baby is held by a smiling relative,
a band of singing mothers push their prams,
an old man is pacing his afternoon walk
amiably nodding our way.
There are snooker clubs, Karate clubs, football courts,
Seven Sisters chatting above the chimney tops…
This town never died.
It simply started to use a different power source.
© Sam Fisher, 2012
Falinge Gates
These stone-columned gates lead to lifetimes of childhood,
to ages spent souring on swift chain swings,
to eras of endless hide and seek, stood by the counting tree…
‘Ready or not, here Time comes!’
We heard his bellow shaking the budding sapling’s leaves.
We knew we were cornered, so we pounced from our bushes,
gave him a fright, one last time,
then leapt blindly into cartwheels on the sunlit green.
Though the game seemed over and the swing hung loose
these gates remember our wet-sweat hair,
our charged smiles hurtling over rock-bordered paths;
though Time is still counting, when we pass these pillars,
these gates remember we were never truly found.
© Sam Fisher, 2012
Cronkeyshaw Common
Lungs of weavers, winders, carders,
Blessed green and sun-filled space.
Gleam of water, diamond-bright.
Run childer, run, embrace the air,
Know this space.
Cherish it.
Sit.
Rest awhile, you traveller.
Maybe, in your reverie,
An echo, faintly, on the breeze
Of leading guiding bell-horse,
In its wake, so light of foot, pretty long-haired Galloways
With stone and coal, cloth and wool,
All heading down to Rochda’.
© Eileen Earnshaw, 2012
CronkeyShaw Common
At this traffic tipped turnstile we must make a judgement:
will it be Falinge, Fieldhouse, Greenbank, or Regent?
For our world rolls on in every direction
and yes, in time, we must make that decision
but what better breadth for a breath, a pause?
The Alpine greets the traveller with open doors
where we can plot our path as we share a jar;
if we wish to steer clear of the tempting bar
we could sit right here on the soft, obliging grass
and talk our route as the sun makes its pass.
True, the world rolls on in every direction;
but why not watch it turn a while on the Common?
© Sam Fisher, 2012
The Pigeon and The Blackbird
Cross the tightrope of Shawclough Road
we find true balance as our route unfolds
to a brief shower of daisy chains, buttercups,
and pleasing purpling weeds. The harbinger of nature,
a blackbird sweetly sings from her nest overhead,
her song drowning the drone of toneless roads…
but suburbia is ready for her overture –
a pigeon coos pleasantly on a trimmed velvet lawn
and the reality of tarmac is never far from home…
still, we plunge back into the wild depths of trees,
the blackbird’s song carried on clearing winds
that blow us to a crossroads at Lower Healey:
should we stay beneath the blackbird’s bough,
or venture to paths where the pigeon beats her wings?
© Sam Fisher, 2012
From the viaduct – Healey Dell
Riding over the viaduct,
Verdant greens hide lies, dreams.
Visible, the secrets hide,
As the dog who barked in the night.
Then
Peering deep into millennia
Woman crouched with fur-clad child.
Look close, see softly gentled limbs,
That glow in golden firelight.
On to
Brown and dun Victorian walls,
With rust-red gate of iron.
Temples to men’s affluence
Crumbling and forgotten.
© Eileen Earnshaw, 2012
Nostalgia
Our cycle route flows like a memory-made stream
of emerald thoughts under greenest sessile oaks,
a channel to those Summer jewels of scaling dry rock walls,
rippling dazzling reflections in a sun-drenched pool
the fresh May rain had so kindly stored.
We ride downriver, carried closer to those young Dell days
when we spied on trotting horses in wild clover fields,
this route surging, minds widening, driving us closer
to the stealthy bats that swooped above our heads,
to the laughter in a boulder’s mossy eyebrows,
to the zest of youth’s aroma in thriving forest flora.
As we delve into the Dell we knew,
our course delivers us to the landmark of our longing
where we bathe in the warm sea of ourselves.
© Sam Fisher, 2012
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
The Write of Way: Blue Pits Lock 51
We used to meet here, you and I
Where a distant Arrow pierces the sky
And leaves derelict buildings wondering why
I dredge up this image from ‘51
Of the Courtaulds mill, when Cotton was King
© Val Chapman, 2012
HERE
If wishing made it so.
Here, where all and nought happens as one,
would be carved an X to mark the spot.
Here be dragons and here be magic
where words, all tumbled and jumbled
fall into place
stepping out in time to make music and rhyme.
If wishing made it so.
Here, where never will always fight forever,
should be a landmark on the spot.
Here be truth and here be lies
where time
tut tutting at our standing
still moves on
with no backward glance or care.
© Norman Warwick, 2012
Cycles
We wear our hearts
like wishing wells
down by Slattocks
in kind silence
to Castleton.
Some cycles pass
a narrowboat
nudging the lock -
the brief rain makes
this day sparkle
whilst the clouds float
away with time.
© Steve Garside, 2012
Pause
They smile as they pass
and say hello, as do
the riders and the dog
walkers, the angler
casting his cheeky nod
while cows consider
the cud, the sun
suggests the sky
to the water
and nattering birds
ribbon moments with song.
© Steve Garside, 2012
He says
The finest cotton recorded
was spun here in Castleton,
bulk snugged to Manchester
or over the Pennines
to Bradford – horses straining
with each tug of each narrowboat
load, shirt sleeves rolled
for the winding of the sluice -
time like water is never owned
only slowed by the canal
for the timetable of trains
or velocity of cars to overtake
below the sky bypass of planes;
all those endings becoming beginnings
the kiss of the untouched day.
© Steve Garside 2012
The Write of Way: Bridge 62C
Fringed ferns run ragged along its banks
As we tread its watery way
This was our canal, our waterscape
It was our refuge, and a haven safe
For long-necked goslings which rose from reeds
And forget-me-nots peeped like hidden gems
© Val Chapman 2012
arrives with the passing of a train
the thin string section searing rails
chanting the verse of the motorway,
pylon wires crackle with an amplified hiss
a solo car accentuates this crescendo of haste
then everything ends in the pulse of a kiss.
© Steve Garside, 2012
The Write of Way: Bridge 62
To far-flung north came bikes without bells
And spoken wheels whispered I’m here but don’t tell
And graffiti found in blue and bold
Where we found no head or tale was told
Soon, sun slanted leaves and rain drenched trees
Became our showering shelter
But shards of green came slashing through
The safety net of our belief
© Val Chapman, 2012
The Write of Way: Bridge 61
To wooden antlers in waters deep
Memories of ghosts in Stoneyfield creep
And bubbling brooks amidst the woods
Are treading steps to Halfpenny Bridge
And when the sun makes me a silhouette
I can look back to you, and yet
I know that you must go
Following the Arrow, where I will know
You’ll always think of me there with you,
The way we were, so young, so true
And never will I think of that day
Without knowing our waterscape
Meant the same to you
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
Poem coming soon!
From South St.
The centuries sweep down this street.
Away the dust and grime.
Away pursuits of grandiose men,
We place them, back, in time.
Here
On stubborn Selina’s connexion,
Golden children dance.
Halls are built for prayer and peace,
For hope, for joy, well-being.
The seeds of the future flourish here.
The past, is the past, is the past.
But
Maybe a faint and bell-like sound will drift upon the breeze,
Maybe a beautiful dark-eyed child will pause at play, and hear
Then shrug away the ancient sound. The future matters here.
© Eileen Earnshaw, 2012
Stop
Here for
Smithy Bridge,
Weighvers’ Seaport.
Forward to Clegg Hall,
Kingsway’s new industry,
Halfpenny Bridge’s dead mill,
Sandbrook and motorway culvert.
On through Castleton’s bank-side decay.
In ten more years, will all regenerate?
© Robin Parker, Langley Writers, June 2012
From 1804,
Narrow boats flowed past here
For commerce and pleasure;
By 1950s they flowed no more.
Ten years back, 1 July 2002,
Waters flowed again,
Parted by horse boat Elland,
Enthroning Fred the chimney man,
Flowing here with VIPs
To part Ben Healey’s red ribbon
© Robin Parker, Langley Writers, June 2012
Pennines bleak delight
Lark high fish low waters flow
Meadow flowers bright
© Robin Parker, Langley Writers, June 2012
Waters flow steep
Through lock flights deep
As cycles sweep
Past boats which reap
Relaxed tedium
Mechanised necessity
© Robin Parker, Langley Writers, June 2012
From watershed through steep, deep locks you’ll flow,
Perhaps moor for an overnight nearby
Chelbourne, where warm evening sun may glow,
Or cold and drizzle summer months belie.
Canal flows steeply down past industry,
Some standing idle in long, sad decay
As monument to fabric history;
Some thriving and producing, day by day.
Soon rustic locks and bridges coincide
By number, forty four to forty five
Canal and railway soon run side by side,
But these two modes together do not thrive;
For passengers on fast track cannot see
The pleasure of canal’s tranquillity.
© Robin Parker, Langley Writers, June 2012
