Poem

The Ballad of Milton Keynes

Here in Nowhereville
Nothing is rooted,
Our roads are convoluted;
We are MK, we don’t care

Here in Overspillville,
Your metropolitan disdain
Causes no pain;
We are MK, we don’t care

Here in Xscapeville,
We dream of ancient ploughs
Pulled by concrete cows;
We are MK, we don’t care

Some say we’re just a nameplate
On a cut and shut job;
Roundabout and sink estate,
Bauble for a town-planner’s fob;

But go north to Stony Stratford,
To the confection that is MK11,
And look backward, backward
From that little aspic heaven;

Back, beyond these numbing slipshod days;
Back, through the creeping sepia haze;

And you will see fields flocked with Iceni dead
Where Redways now wind and sashay;
And the legions spread their purple dread
Where drunks now lurch and bray;

And further on past urban dross,
Where high street meets river sheen;
To the spot where Longshanks built a cross
For Eleanor his inseparable queen;

Or linger at the enigma that was Bletchley,
Or see Olney’s shrove pancakes tossed;
And hear the engines shunt at Wolverton quay,
The shimmering rails that bound us once, now lost

For there is distance
There is distance
And time too...

And there is space
Yes, and a sense of place
That finds a home
In me and you

Ralph Keats
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

Not much to me really. An OU slave for much of my life, latterly freed and twiddling his thumbs in Milton Keynes. Teach a bit, love my music and took up writing a few years back. Very lazy but Pen Pusher have been very indulgent. Blame them not me.

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