She wails down by the riverside
Weeping pools of emerald tears
That drip into the water’s depths
Portraying loss so dear
For her true love has left her
Departed years ago
Leaving her alone to cry bereft
As her grief overflows
And by the Medway’s winding bank
Where rooted she must stay
She wills him to return to her
Why did he go away?
Yet through the years he’s not come back
And her? She’s drowning in
Her purgatory; sad jilted bride
Bless her and her offspring
Great blood vessels once flowed throughout
And cut across the living world
In streams of full vivacity
Sustaining life ahead
Such rivers surged with heart and soul
Like arteries cross every land
Yet then as veins of human tears
They wept in waters red
And haematoma blocked the flow
As conflict stifled, killed and raped
What had we done? What do we do?
Usurped the river’s bed
Their courses altered by great wars
Permeated by broken lives
No longer fluid crystal blue
But channels of the dead
Arterial brooks starved of life
Left bleeding cross the world so wide
But now let’s hear the war cries cease
For peace to flow and spread
The river is a bustling place
A busy water course
A harbinger of tales of old
Of man and fettered horse
Who lived on banks in ancient barge
With paintwork gleaming bright
And livery from olden days
Canal and other sights
A tale that tells a story that
He took his barge downstream
Towards the ports so bustling
With boats that sailed on steam
Where markets burst with worldly goods
From places near and far
Where work was given to the few
In dockland and in bar
And so the river man arrived
With fettered horse on lead
To haul the cargo from the ships
With help from trusty steed
To make a small yet good living
From work that he procured
With horse to help him lift and lug
As gold they then secured
And so he worked from dawn to dusk
Without a break it’s told
On docks during the summer days
To clear each cargo hold
Until at last he had amassed
Sufficient to go back
To home right on his river bank
With gold in his knapsack
A day and night and maybe more
He went right back upstream
With horse on towpath steadily
As man and beast in team
Back to the bank he longed to see
The place he loved the best
To settle down with feet aloof
To take a well-earned rest
But sadly that was not to be
For in the midnight air
Three robbers hung in a tunnel
Like wolves inside their lair
And in the light of misted moon
They jumped the man and horse
To steal his hard earned wages
And attack him on his course
They beat him hard and shot his horse
And left him as for dead
And took his barge, his bag of gold
His all; his daily bread
And in the darkness of the night
These villains fled from sight
To leave the river man to die
On bank; no future bright
And so the tale goes onto say
That there in tunnel’s mouth
Down on the river, by the bank
A little to the south
The ghost of river man now dwells
With horse stood on the tow
A sharp reminder to the rest
Beware just where you go!
English: Blisworth Tunnel, North Entrance from inside tunnel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ginz&Tonic 