Everybody loves a bonfire

Guy Fawkes

Humber Estuary: 1955

The last thing our Guy Fawkes will see

is the sea coming in to rescue him.

But the sea won't reach. The rockets

and Catherine wheels will reach,

 

but the tide is too low to douse a fire.

Shriveled to penny eyes and shells for teeth,

his ashes will drift to the estuary,

his wide mouth leak the oils and tars

 

of Sheffield's industrial froth.

Push-netters shrimping the shallows

might have helped if they had heard,

but they're ranters and levellers to a man.

 

"bonfire at ocean beach" by maywong_photos is licensed under CC BY 2.0 . 

 

 

 

 

 

Everybody loves a bonfire.

Everybody loves to see Guy Fawkes burned.

The crowds will pay sixpence for fresh crab

and shrimps in brown paper bags.

 

The last thing our Guy Fawkes will see 

is the cocklers and inshore fishermen,

warm in tarred oilskins and sou'westers

pretending they are boys again,

 

shouting for the death of the straw man,

the fire of belief in their eyes,

the fists of the future in their hands.

a dance of screaming crowds in the sea.

 

~ William Bedford, The Dancers of Colbek (2020), p. 19