City Sonnets - 35 and 36

So, as you can see, these two places almost rhyme, which has happened by happy accident, and raises the stakes considerably, and turns this whole thing into a ...
... MAJOR ARTISTIC ENTERPRISE!

HAMBURG

The Beatles we weren’t, shyly tiptoeing

The Reeperbahn in tepid daytime tasks

But still quietly unnerved by hovering

Blue neon guilt. That was the deadest mask

The crackling harbour city offered us.

We briefly sank down winded, even wished

Ourselves back home. A rush of sun, a gust

Of sea took hold, half-cleared our mourning mist.

I saw my first red squirrel! And like that

My Hamburg was exotic and ablaze

With promise kept, til finally we sat

By Binnenalster, sold on golden days.

We never saw the Beatles, or the darkening night

life of the city, kept it sober, clean and light.

BAMBURGH

I gleam with shame as I remember when

I ran to Bamburgh over rolling road,

Our first family holiday as men

And women, not just your four-headed load –

You’d still abide, of course, aglow with pride,

Still free of greater pains in waves to come …

Or maybe they’re already yours to hide

That year my way to Bamburgh was to run.

I ran to Bamburgh, just five miles, no more,

forth, back, but still too much for me that day.

I can’t remember what I ran there for

From our grand rented house on Budle Bay.

That was itself such a long time ago,

Though why I’m haunted now is mine to know.