Thi Dorty Bottles by Owen Townend

Another late night at Ye Old Cross Inn,

the innkeeper's wife turfed out the crowd

while he took stock of the ale left within

and rattled the necks of bottles of stout. 

 

Together they watched their patrons stagger

up the slope from Alnwick's Narrowgate,

following lamps with glints thin as daggers

to cold doorsteps where angry wives wait. 

 

And as the innkeeper reached for three bottles

that sat by the window on a blackening wall, 

his wife glanced up, clearing pipes of their dottle

and saw him land hard from an unlikely fall. 

 

Clutching his body, the wife felt a chill:

those three dirty bottles were frightfully still...

This poem was inspired by Ye Olde Cross Inn of Alnwick, Northumberland. The mythic bottles can be found inside. 

For more details: https://www.thedirtybottles.co.uk/about/