Past houses where spouses are spitting at children

and satellite dishes are marks of distinction;

where villainous vermin shadow-box curtains

and takeaway cartons bespatter the gardens;

where nobody bothers to pick up the dogshit

while stood on the pavement twittering gossip

and stubbing out ciggies on steps without polish,

deporting the darkies and ordering curries

and voting for parties that all sound like Tories

while falling asleep to the new bedtime stories.

 

Past bungalows greying, decaying and sagging

where Cornelius Hawkins left himself hanging.

The neighbours come round 'cos the dog kept on yapping

at the rope in the loft from which he was dangling.

The TV left on but nothing worth watching -

I wonder what dogs make of men hung like washing.

 

Past knickers and needles and knives in the back

and the alley that leads to the railway track

where Harry the Alky in a flash of insight

had laid himself down between the train lines:

the train passed straight over and Harry survived,

some people just cannot do anything right.

Of course Harry eventually choked on his vomit,

now train drivers sound horns when approaching the crossing

as a warning of sorts to those bent on dying

and a curse to all others attempting a lie-in.

 

Past the park that the council desire for allotments;

the football pitch now has but one set of goalposts.

Bureaucracy's moved them to state its position;

the residents draw up another petition.

A perennial game of attack and defence

on cabbages, peas and a faded green bench

by the burial grounds where the dead cannot rest

but be shuffled around to make room for who's next,

before the barb-wire surrounding the wood

that's a small tuft of hair on a balding man's head

and it's soon to be shaven, the signs indicate,

for my local estate is a cancerous pate.

 

Oh, I do it disservice, I'm all bile and jaundice;

tomorrow the snow will have smoothed every surface.

The earth will resemble a different planet:

one I'm able to visit if not quite inhabit.