Omnibus

Omnibus

Omnibus - for all. 1. Omnibus or carryall words are words that are extraordinarily difficult to define. They carry all sorts of meanings 2. A printed anthology of the works of one author or of writings on related subjects 3. The man on the Clapham omnibus is the ordinary man in the street. Bus in the header is MTJ 435C, pictured when in service with Rawtenstall Corporation. Bus below is MTJ 434C, pictured when in my brother's yard in Ewood Bridge. These are some of my writings; some connections. This is not about omnibuses. This is the omnibus edition.

<< < August 2008 > >>
Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

<< < August 2008 > >>

Rushbearing

We’ll have a wake like the old wakes,
As the townships close in.
Search the moorlands for rushes
While the probing wind pulls at the flax,
And tussocks of reeds are like stepping stones
For the children who dance through the wet marshes,
Watching the wakes dance through time
Bacup’s cocoanutters to Nick o’Thungs,
Rochdale’s “ceremonial gang warfare,”
A pulsebeat pumping
With the life of generations.
Defeating the bosses by simply running off,
Returning home in liquor at 6 am on Tuesday morning,
Holidays carved by custom
Not the masters’ liberality.

Come then, children.
We’ll gather in the pubs of Underhill,
Step briefly in the church
Its floors flagged over
By the cold stones of modernism
Dig on our knees in the loam
As if looking for something
Someone
We will seek the wet peat beneath
Sifting through the bones
Of our long gone Tollund children.

Scatter the rushes once more
My friends.
They still play, I hear them,
The children of the moors.
Dancing wutheringly amidst the rushes and reeds.
Jayne MacDonald
Keith Bennett
Stefan Kisco, yes
Hear the rushes hush, the soothing swoosh.
Sleep now.
Sleep now.
Hush.