TWO POEMS FOR OUR LITTLE TOWN

More from the 'Haven Bard'!

By Richard Beckett

Spring 2010 Newhaven .Degeneration not Re-generation

In days of old in our fair town, The children played and romped around

The bad old days we thought were past, The good days looked as if to last,

But now the futures looking grim, They want to let the rubbish in

The Sussex Planners let us down, They do not care about our town

For soon will come the Rubbish cart’, The rubbish burning soon will start

Then rancid fumes will fill the air, And  on still days will just lie there.

Not cool and tranquil mist of old, Spread oe’r the town so damp and cold

But a putrid fetid choking gown, Unmoving, grey or deadly brown

From far and wide will lorries come, From Brighton Hove and places

So we can breathe the filthy fumes, They don’t want in THEIR faces

No, we must suffer, and we will, The selfishness of them

To we who live in this small town, This fetid air condemn

Regeneration of the Town they say, On that I will not bet

A life of putrid air we’ll breathe,  Both day and night we’ll get

For can’t they see that it will bring,  Upon the town it’s doom

Who’ll want to live and work and breathe, In daily deadly gloom

Beneath a blanket of bad air, But they’re not here So they don’t care

For them Newhaven is fair game, To them Newhaven’s just a name

A place where all their rubbish goes, As long as it’s not there

A burner large in their back yard, The planners couldn’t care

And once the deadly burner’s built, Then we will live ‘neath deadly quilt

And die from breathing all those fumes, That o’er our little town now looms                          

May 2011

Oh no M’Lud ‘Twill not intrude, upon the local scene

We’ll build it low & un-ob-trusive, it will not be seen

Those words were spoken, years ago by better men than we

To mighty Judges on the bench, so they might just agree

They made it all sound great, a very simple place

Not something that would really stand, and stare you in the face

And so permission they did get, to build this monstrous pile

Which now looms o’er this little town, and residents revile

Two chimneys standing tall and thin, tower o’er the town of New   Hay   Ven

And daily as the lorries come, Newhaven be-comes more a slum

Some hundred tons and more a day, is what they state will come our way

And to ensure there are no blips, then even more will come by ships

To watch the pence and watch the cost, and just make sure it’s not a loss

To make the building all worthwhile, the deadly fumes spew from this pile

To daily feed it’s gaping mouth, the rubbish comes from North and South

And faster, faster, more and more, the lorries line up at the door

So all the time the dreaded fumes spew out across the land

And those who let the plans go through, strut round and say “How Grand”

But they who said it should be built within this little town

Set low upon a valley floor surrounded by the Downs

Don’t live or work, or breathe round here,

Oh no, they had their say

For where they live they have no fear,

The fumes will blow their way

So yet another nail is set, within New   Hay   Ven’s coffin

And that is what we’ll all be doing,

Coughing, Coughing, Coughing.

Richard Beckett