No way to treat royalty

[Keith]

off topic...are you fuckin' serious :HUH:

---

i missed this 1st time round or so.

where i live the canals are or have been cleaned up, i'm not sure if the perch have taken over but i did enjoy the fight a 2 or 3 pounder put up on half pound line i think you capture a time gone by and the present, i can't believe we still have ruined canals in the uk, (i was an avid angler ) but your poem gives that impression.
i think it still needs some work but not loads

Edit thanks to feedback

It used to move sugar and cotton,
hoofed tensioned tow ropes
now decorate cast iron moorings,i took the the above as canals and barges, and can't reconcile the next line to the 1st 3 lines.
tarmac creeps black through its veins. a suggestion would be over it's veins.

A shopping trolley for the lock keeper, it sounds too much like an award, a suggestion would be; a dead shopping...
army ant perch strangled the canal, i've even caught zander which is an invasive species from abroad.
I know the colour of drowning water, great image
mixed with a tear in my anglers hand. i'm thinking the perch problem has got worse since i last fished the canals.

Nature’s graveyard is quiet today,
children amble ahead, splat bricks
in silted beds, conversations dead
free to be but no place or purpose. for me this stanza does little for the poem

Majestic pike strikes the surface,
his gills can't fill in stagnant pools,
a broken bulldog's jaw trawls for food.
I saw panic in its eyes and it saw me. i'm not sure you need 'i saw'

The young matadors sense its pain
trying to maim something so precious,
so barely alive evolved to survive, a comma after alive?
little flags did it, no trumpet sounded.

No celebration on council house streets,
silver threads floated bloated another
sport of kings they’ve missed precious
little shits, it’s no fucking way to live. i like the rant and the summation of the last stanza but feel you could say/word it better.


Original
It used to move sugar and cotton,
hoofed tensioned tow ropes
now decorate cast iron moorings,
a road has severed its vein.
The keys have rusted in the locks,
over stocked with permitted perch,
the colour of drowning water is brown,
planners linear walks where nothing talks.

Nature’s graveyard is quiet today,
children play ahead, splat bricks
in silted beds, said 'look over there'
throw stones, point and stare.
Majestic pike strikes the surface,
his gills cannot fill in stagnant pools,
a broken bulldogs jaw, trawls for food.
I didn’t like its eye until it saw me.

The boys thought this would be a game
to try and maim something so precious,
so barely alive, yet evolved to survive.
One big brick did the trick, its great
silver body floated, bloated another
sport of kings they’ve missed, little
shits, it’s no fucking way to fish.

Billy thank you for the considered feedback you raise some good points here that will be useful in the edit. The uk's water ways are much improved these days and so has the fishing but this poor little stretch has been missed off the list, a group of us spent time trying to improve it a couple of years ago and I've not been able to get back since then so not sure of its current condition. Cheers Keith