Art Deco | Candia Comes Clean

Tags

Yes, folks, I’m back. Here’s a wee poem for you, describing my thoughts as

Flybe took me out of Glasgow Airport:

SHE’S LEAVING HOME

Instead of a speug’s* view at ground level,

I have a skewed vista doon the watter.

There’s a lump in my throat like a Soor Ploom,

as my keen eye picks out Dumbarton Rock,

before the plane’s wing and cloud wisps obscure

the Ben and those Kilpatrick Hills – cradle

of my childhood. The tributary Cart,

where mighty hulks dragged their chains,

buoyed up those liners that would cruise the world,

while dredgers kept the channel free of silt

and every vessel seemed to be Clyde-built.

A solitary crane marks the spot

where political tourniquets strangled

the life out of industry and population.

Patchwork fields look as if they have been stitched

into a quilt by a local giantess,

the boundaries hemmed in by Paisley thread,

before Singer stopped treadling out machines

and its Art Deco clock had its hands tied,

as the shriek of town sirens was stifled.

I see my house, my school, the High Flats,

where Luftwaffe rained down a thousand bombs,

before I saw the light of day. Yon spire

of Glesca Uny soars toward the sky;

beckons to a Celestial City,

just like the finger of John the Baptist:

a pointer to a life outside the frame.

Education – the sky was the limit.

And now I can never come truly home.

Photo by Stephen Sweeney, Wikipaedia Commons

Candia Comes Clean