Bostin News - Stay Up Your Own End poems

‘Stay Up Your Own End’ was a series of six online events, each providing a platform for poets of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to share their work. Held on Monday evenings on the Prattlers Facebook page, fellow poets were encouraged to write about some aspect of life in their part of the Black Country.

Each week an established regional poet provided a prompt for their part of the Black Country, Richard Archer (Walsall), Rick Sanders (Dudley), Roy McFarlane (Sandwell), Kuli Kohli (Wolverhampton), and Heather Wastie (Stourbridge).

After the Walsall, Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Stourbridge events took place there was a grand finale on 20th July. At each event a ‘judge’s favourite’ was chosen and alongside a prize there was an opportunity to work on creating a video of their poem where they were shown at the final.

You can see the winning poem videos below.

Tack Chain Saddles Coal 1’26” - by Daniel Oram

I remember when all this was chimneys
A town built on Leather and Steel
It’s heavy metal swagger, stood tall around me
This was the place I grew up in

I remember peering through the car windows
Passing the TAINLSS STL TBS on Green Lane
And the coal-black ground leading to the power station

I remember seeing the sidings And the trains, 
Pulling coal trucks that went on and on and on and on
Food for the hungry beast in our midst, 
Devouring its inky feast

I remember when all this was concrete and brick
From the ABC to the Overstrand
The Brutalist shopping centres and rain-washed streets

I remember the dizzying array of factories
Rolling Mills, sheet pressing plants, 
Stamping mills and smelting foundries

Forever running day and night
It’s shift clocking workers
Turing the prayer wheels of the Arcane temples
Dedicated to the Gods of Industry

And the ever-present roar of the M6…

M6, spine road, mighty motorway
Speeding bright boxy cars full of
Fast food families and Profit driven businessmen
Past our little town

Past OUR little town
Unaware of our heritage and history
Built on tack, chain, saddles and coal

Dudley 2070 - by Alan Glover

Fifty years hence
The people are mostly nowhere
No sign of the queue for Greggs,
No sign of Greggs
The Little Barrel is long gone
Washed out to sea like the rest

A signpost marks the site of the Market
Which long since sold its last ‘nana
Now sitting maybe 50ft underwater
Like some Black Country Atlantis

The animals left the Zoo on a boat
An Ark taking them to who knows where

Divers sometimes visit to explore, 
The labyrinth of underground caves and passageways
Created by Plaza Mall, The Arcade, Churchill Precinct & more
No more bargains to be looted though from what is left,
Of Poundland, B&M & Wilko

The only visible landmarks above water now are
Top Church, the Castle & New Cavendish House
Built by the council in 2030 when they couldn’t decide 
What else they should do with the site where the old one stood.

You can still see the top of Bottom Church when low tides prevail
And the ghostly living wrecks of the 125, 246 & 74 are visible below 
Full of fish and creatures languishing in the warm tropical waters 
That returned just after Covid 49 got sorted 
And we had forgotten about global warming.

Dudley is just a memory now
But at least there is evidence of it’s being.
Tipton, Wednesbury, Walsall & everywhere between here and the Urals 
Had it SO much worse.

New Arrivals (in the Sandwell Valley) - by Gerald Kells

from the RSPB centre we watch
flocks of sleek parakeets - they’ve come to join
a community of birds which thrive where 
watercourses and woods, hidden behind 
offices and homes, inevitably fall from the 
high Black Country ridge into this valley,
a heart carved through by cut and railway,
leapfrogged by the throbbing commerce of 
the M5 - they’ve made this sanctuary their home,
plucked up twig and tack, whatever’s close,
coated temples with flags, formed festivals, sung
sweet arias - for those who caw out bigotry
stop where you are, just for a second, and listen

Bulbulhamptan Tuesday Market - Santosh K Dary

I head to Bulbulhamptan Tuesday market,
twirling my trolley bag, moving through crowds.
Checking stalls resting by rugs and carpet,
buy fruit and veg, where it’s weighed in pounds.

My friends Shano, Banti, Preeto they all wait,
at the twin bhai’s stand, fabrics piled in a row.
Colours of rainbow at Tuesday’s bargain rate,
I choose red silk for shalwar kameez to sew.

Finding a bench, we eat chilli paneer pakoras,
sip bottled paani, but prefer sweet masala chai.
Gup chup on our ailments, there’s no cure for us,  
bitch about our bahus, they just don’t even try. 

We tut and sigh, roll our eyes and say hai rabba, 
Bulbalhamptan market, till next Tuesday subha!

Punjabi Words

bhais - brothers
shalwar kameez - Punjabi suit
paneer pakoras - milk curd fritters in chick pea flour
paani - water
masala chai - spicy tea
gup chup - chit chat
bahus - daughter-in-laws
hai rabba - dear god
subha - morning

Alma Mater: King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys, Stourbridge - by Paul Francis

TEACHER:
Four hundred years of history set in stone
which gets its due respect today, at last;
approved by OFSTED, sixth form and select.
Back in the sixties boys would mock
formality, the gowns, the honours boards.

A tender little shoot when he first came.
Collected stamps; into the Romans, too.
So, maybe history? Or maybe not.
His dad took him to Molineux, aged five;
he claimed he got a wave from Billy Wright. 

Time won’t stand still, the hormones do their worst. 
He wanted to be Elvis. Grew his hair
and thought he knew it all. The weeds run wild.
I warned him, get your ‘O’ levels, or else:
tarmac with Wimpey, Woolworths at Halesowen.

PUPIL:
Spot on, he was, with both of them.
Assemblies, all I’m hearing is the sound
of Robert Johnson, Albert Lee
calling me out of Stourbridge, out of school.
I find my strength, grow up, branch out.

Way past the ring road – Zeppelin, Marrakech,
the buzz of being a rockstar out on stage.
Those voices took me deep inside the blues
through fifty years of passion, pleasure, work
to polls which put me up there with the greats.