Urban Song (Leeds)

By Deborah J Mantle

On a grey, muffled day,

walking by silent buildings of red brick,

crunching garlands of green and white glass

(is it late-night art or just rubbish?),

I hear song – notes of the palest blue

that fly up, down, then circle around.

I try to filter music from noise.

Ignore the drill of engines striving up-hill.

Remove the slur of black tyres on slick roads.

Take away the insistent call of a street crossing.

Erase the intrusion of a one-sided conversation:

‘Are you listening to me, or what?’,

the anger in her voice, her tight face.

On a brown fence stands a black bird.

Chest out, yellow beak open,

it sings, it sings.

Originally from the north-west of England, D J Mantle travelled widely while working as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. Having lived and floundered in a variety of countries, she has a particular interest in writing about travel, dislocation, identity and nature.