Poem of the North - 821 Challenge - "Legacy"

This was my unsuccessful entry to the "Poem of the North" competition. The format is 8-2-1, 8 lines, 2 lines and 1 line, 821 being the classification for English Poetry in the Dewey Decimal system. The theme is "The North" and it must have a turn ("volta") before the couplet.

You can find the winners (including at some point those by my friends Mick Jenkinson and Ian Parks) on the Poetry of the North website



Legacy

The further south I go the more I feel
the warmth around me feeds
the cold within.
The memory of bleak, wind hardened hills
tugs and spins like thread upon a wheel.
A legacy of factories, mines and mills,
harsh injustices galvanized by greed
and the angry cries of my ancestral kin.

Though history informs our common bond
the future can't be smothered by the past.

The time has come to hone our northern steel.

Tim Fellows 2018