Driving route five,
up through California,
Surrounded by sunflowers,
olives and vines.
Predominantly, either side,
I see paddies of rice
drowned in water,
which rarely drips
from clear blue skies.
Alas, what rice is there
When the aquifers run dry?
Up passages so narrow
Th'as to squeeze,
Through steep terraced rows
'gainst raw Pennine breeze.
Streets once cobbled
Under hoof and wheel,
Now not a hobble
Nor cloppity reel.
No mares, no foals
Lest for deceitful treat.
No mines, no coal,
To labourer's defeat.
A walk down't' canal
Old Liverpool to Leeds
Still pit heads at' banks
But no barges int reeds.
Horse-drawn loads long forgotten
Unto rod and reel.
Gone the glory days of cotton
And factories' ferocious peal.
No more are't' bustling mills,
Now flats or crumbling shells.
No chimneys to adorn the hills
And bugger all to sell.
Lankyshire once was mighty,
Weaved the crown its jewels.
Lankyshire now blighted in Blighty,
Out of work, unrenewed.
Alas in modern times to stride,
A Lanky lad must leave.
Pints of Wainwright to London Pride,
And tertiary sector slave.
O'er Watford wider still the Gap,
Divide grows deep with greed.
Alas, the South would sadly lack
If not for industrial creed.
