Imagination fully stretched
in bricks and concrete permanently etched:
Byron Avenue
Keats Drive
Longfellow Crescent
Tennyson Road
municipal tributes
to the muse and the ode.
Bricked up versions of memory's incursions
stretching out across former fields
insulting nature
with their token trees
the obsessive regard for birds and bees.
None of these gestures can now resurrect
the spirit of the Great Architect.
In Barcelona we did the tourist thing and went to the Sagrada Familia - from the outside it is eerily wonderful - it is being 'finished' but to me it's being finished off - the newer bits, while well intentioned, lack the verve, passion and eye ripping virtuosity of the parts that Gaudi over saw.
The guys who went with me were amazed by the building - I was dismayed.
Hey Ray,
Love the line
Bricked up versions of memory's incursions..
Don't worry, soon we will have:
Simon Cowell Avenue
Arianne Grande Close
And we will all wave plastic candles as we walk down the street, singing Candle in the Wind.
Oh man, you've got me going now..
Suki
The toe and shoe's girth are bid welcome by the earth,
But what's in concrete to comfort the feet?
For the hardness was made for the turn of the wheel...
The need for more speed and its handmaiden: steel!
I was sat above the driver in a coach to Barcelona - I like to 'co-drive' and as the M1 unfolded I couldn't help but think, "Who? What? Why? Did anyone think this was a good idea?"
Nice one, Ray ?
<Deleted User> (13762)
Mon 5th Jun 2017 08:34
a timely pairing with Rick's About A Motorway - both harking back to days less cluttered and concreted over.
Alas there is no going back, we onward march, blinkered, soulless - only the poet's voice silently speaking out in remembrance of something long gone, lost or barely noticeable - the irony evident in your street names.
of all things that make me sad, the despoliation of our planet is top of the list. Both you and Rick have captured this sadness so well in your individual ways.
Col.
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raypool
Tue 6th Jun 2017 19:31
First off guys, my own space for comment was unwittingly like the joker card, leaving nothing in place - cockup of course.
Col, I picked up on that poem of Rick's , very colourful and in great style. I think there is a certain bitterness in the building over of nature's bounty - but of course with rising populations what can we really do (go underground maybe). Thanks, mate.
Rick, I spent hours to the north on coaches - just mind numbing, as you say. Cheers. My overall heart sinking moment is in the Solstice Services near Stonehenge. I remember a patchwork of fields there in 1960 on a bike.
True enough, Mark - equally sad news . Thanks.
Thanks Suki. I wasn't sure if that line would click, but it's nice that you like it! I think the political spectrum has been mined out with it's names, but how about various named cul de sacs to match their progress.
David, nice to hear from you. Grandiosity doesn't cut it does it! (They paved paradise, put up a parking lot).
Ray Love to all.