Wednesday 14 February 2007

Jess's Poem/Comment on St Austell

On those days where rain stings like a hundred porcupines into my skin and the wind rushes past my ears - roaring random stories of whip-lashed seas, high tides and all-knowing moons - the town I live in has a defeated air hanging drearly over it, resigned to the fate of others.

The beautifull, tall buildings, architecture lovingly structured to support a community proud to belong - now stare accusingly at the bowed heads of those generations. The granite, seeping stories, the moss hiding shame.

Were it an old forgotten garden the vines would have crept upwards to hide the pain of loss and age, the grasses would grow to cover the cracks of dispair and the leaves would mask the trials of futures gone with a rich diversity of green.

This old town has no such luck. The ripped shreds laid bare for the townsfolk to admire, to tut and cluck over how they themselves have been forgotten. The town being their symbol, their pride. Like an injured soldier lying alongside his men - the town carried by others around it - it's competition - but also it's saviours.

Old school Truro, thriving, occasionally spitting a person from its streets only to find them wandering, bewildered, down Austells paths. Plymouth, from ages gone, sending visitors for the peace and beauty of Cornwall, perhaps a stumble into the town and they find a torn community... the embarrassment of being held by others all to evident in the half hearted attempts at restoration.

And what they don't know - what they don't care - is that, were they to do something, anything - not only would they give life to a place - they would be giving life to the people.



This was posted by Jess as a comment to Bitumen.Thanks Jess:)

More poems and prose please, either anonamouly as comments or via email.


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