Flickers and Flames

 

Sound the sirens for the smoke in the rain.

It enveloped the sky and the conversation.

It burnt brightly and stopped the trains

They came running with speculation

 

To see the end of it all and the start of something

To see the anger and thrall

To see the men give it all or nothing

 

They stood back on the hillside, ripe with fingers in directions

They watched the wind of what was said and where it was blowing

They saw the lights and haze,

They saw it all from that hillside

They saw it all glowing

 

Cars with craned necks

barriers with breached streams

a flood of people with furrowed brows

holding back the screams

 

And the man on the phone watching the smoke take it all

And nothing he could do as timbers fell to the pyre

And it came down with dust and calls of the end of his crumbling empire.

 

Light faded and with it went the crowds

Left were the reporters and the people for the emergency

Right next to the shards and the shroud

That covered the mess and hid the urgency

 

The weeks came and went

The scaffold went up

The people in street whispered it was insurance

The papers said it was murky

The accusations rife in the workies

 

They stood still and displayed thoughts of remembrance

Dusted down the black and spoke of the days

Let the town fall silent and bemoaned the misfortune

Asked that question but found themselves wanting

 

For there were no answers

No reason or rhyme

As to why the valley saw red

And changed the light and chorus

Of what was said

And the chimes

 

The people walked past and wondered the future for two

The last of it was knocked down after six

People stopped talking after twelve

The Council tarmacked for a car park after eighteen

 

From time to time people spoke of what was lost

of the cost

of turning the tarmac into a Car Park

giving the tarmac some streetlights

to hide the dark

 

After a while it was just another day

Just another thing to talk about.

 

 

 

RichMyself is a 26 year old graduate in Journalism raised in Leicestershire and based in Cheshire. His work centres mostly around poetry, social commentary and short stories of which he hoping to publish later in 2013.  This is his website.