POETS CORNER

SOTNEV

17-12-2006

It's this year's "might have" present - one of those fancy Satnav's for your car. Black Country poet Brendan Hawthorne only uses Shanks's, but doesn't see why he should be left out.

Sandwell Organised Travel Network European Version

SOTNEV

I'm useless at follerin' directions

Yo know wot it's loike lads

Pizza plaerce instead o Chinese

Chip shap instead o curry ‘ousen

So I got ter reasoning that I shud

a one o them SOTNEV's installed

The bloke at Alf Fords looked

ever so perplexed when I asked im

if I'd gotta tek me vest off fer im

ter run all the wiring to mek it werk

He said ‘owd up maerty we ony fit em ter cars'

I replied ‘bugger I ay got one doe let me dahn

me pigeons av got mower chance o getting um than me.

See I'm in need o follerin a tried an tested route'

The bloke said ‘ast thee tried th A-Z?'

I said ‘I av, Brum, Tam' uth, Torquay

thay just doe equate ter the Black Country.'

E said ‘is their a language problem?'

‘There bloody well is!' I shouted back vexed

‘Some streets av ad their signs nicked

other plaeces doe translaerte into the tongue

n just where is Caldmore, Bradley an Cradley?

They shud be Karma, Braerdley an Craerdley'

Unhelpfully the bloke said ‘I si thee problem

but if yo ay gotta car yo'm on yer own'

So three days later I get to me shed

faernd an owd colander an screwed two

car aeriels on the top on it

n then sid abaht tapiin in ter them satellite things

they goo on abahrt

Well I ommered an banged fer ages

I day get ter bed til gone eleven that night

but I climbed the wooden 'ill appy an contented

Couldn't waert fer the neighbours cock ter crow

so I could try ahrt me new invention

Well as the day dawned and an empty tin o beans

nocked the rooster off the fence

I strapped me contrivance on me ead

with a belt I last used in a nativity play when I was ten

Funny ow the thoughts come back to yer

I couldn't find the stable back then neither!

I switched me screen on n the message

scrolled owd up me mon we'm dahrn loadin

N suddenly there it was all the local landmarks

in dialect: keep ahrt th'oss road an tern left at the cut

The fixed point pubs all hi-lighted an the Tipton triangle

where all the blokes disappear on Sunday dinner times

ony ter reappear a few ours laerter totally disorientated

The local oodies seemed interested in me invention an all

they loffed as I walked passed

an they chucked bricks at me but I ad the last loff

I day get lost an neither did the Feds

They arrested me fer corruptin one o their spy satellites

but even they ad ter admit that they'd never a found me

without avin obtained a pirate copy o my programming

from the boot sale on the'ill n

as by their own admission they'd never a guessed

not even in a month o Sundays that

Sandwell an Dudley train staertion was in Oldbury

They apologised fer shuttin me dahrn said

‘at least wi yower initiative yo've got Sandwell on a map

even if it woz ony fer an hour!

An we con offer yo a job at one of our

offices in Area 51'

‘Where's that?' I asked ‘an ow fer is it?'

‘Left at the cactus in a pile o sond' they said

Disappearin mysteriously inter the night

So I reckon it must be one them new

ousin developments in Wednesbury they'm on abahrt

Any road I gotta goo now

doe wanna be laert fer me new job dun I?

Yo doe appen ter know where Wednesbury is dun yer?

Copyright 2006 Brendan Hawthorne