Heckmondwike

[Dylan di Vilde]

‘If you want to go to Heckmondwike’
- said this bloke I know called Mike,
‘you’ll have to go on your bike
‘cos there’s a concrete mixer overturned on the A62.’

(Mike talks about places I don’t want to go
with stories and details I don’t need to know)
So I said “Oh”.

Then I said: Heckmondwike may be important to you
but there’s nothing to see there, nothing to do
and I don’t know a soul
in that run-down hole 
and I really don’t care -
they can leave that truck there.

He paused, looking wounded and pensive,
then got a little defensive,
‘It’s alright is Heckmondwike’
said the disappointed Mike,
‘Sort of quiet but there are lots of places much worse.’

And he tells me, although
I already know,
that there he meets like-minded friends who share the same addiction,
they talk, at length, of aliens and classic science fiction.
It isn’t only Mr Spock, and UFOs and Yoda,
Mike knows this low-cost back street guy
who services his Skoda.
He knows a cracking Indian too
if you like an eye-watering vindaloo
and a guy who’s possibly Vietnamese
who’ll flog you knock off DVDs.
He recommends the Rutland Arms, the Swan and Bag o’ Nails,
compares their steak and ale pies and classifies their ales. 
Rubbish it is not - 
there are things he likes a lot.
I reassess my flippant slur
uncertain what my dislikes were,
why I blithely put down
a whole former blanket-making West Yorkshire town.

I might change my views
if I walked in Mike’s shoes.
Surely I would like it more
if I worked for a superstore
and spent my wind-blown working days
collecting trolleys from holding bays,
dreaming thwarted fan boy dreams
of writing grand galactic themes.
And with no kids or loving wife
it might give me all I want from life.
My prejudice would soften,
I‘d go a lot more often.

So, though I may not recommend
this destination to a friend
you may find that you, like Mike,
quite like
Heckmondwike.
Its modest charms impressive
to the harmlessly obsessive
or anyone who treasures
life’s simple, mundane pleasures.
So if you wonder Is it
a place that I should visit?
Just go and take a look.
Once they’ve moved that truck.
 

[Tracy Mitchell]

Another delightful offering, Dylan. I really liked the more complex rhyme web.
And you do tell a story.

Cheers.

T