Location! Location! Location! It’s a mantra

the upwardly mobile intone,

who have set up shop elsewhere –

catchpenny merchants with tricks up sleeves,

purveyors of pleasures and deals.

 

On a street where ripples of boom

and bust have long since subsided

beneath the tide of failure

the footfall of ‘three day millionaires’

kept all the rest in business.

 

Awaiting turns to land their catches,

trawlers rode at anchor, backed up

beyond the docks.  Their crews staggering

ashore to re-establish land legs

lost them again in pubs

 

where men now washed up at forty

nurse disconsolate pints;

while workless youths hang out,

honing their skills with cues

in a room above the Scope shop.

 

Marks and Sparks pulled out, leaving

a space filled by Mad Harry’s

discount store that held its own for a while,

until it went the way

of Tony’s Textiles, the Polski Sklep.

 

Along this windy channel

nothing much survives beyond its upper

reaches, where Asda thrives like a final

outpost. There’s a place that fixes hoovers;

an Alpha course that fixes souls.

 

From time to time – like a twinge

of conscience there’s talk

of schemes, regeneration: but who throws

good money after bad?  Everything Must Go!

the sign says, when it’s already gone.