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 dog shit

while stood on the pavement twittering gossip

and stubbing their ciggies on steps without polish,

deploring the darkies and ordering curries

and voting for parties in bed with the Tories

then falling asleep to their fairy-tale stories.

 

Past bungalows where 999 has been rang

for Cornelius Hawkins has let himself hang;

the neighbours come round to hush the dog’s yap

at the rope in the loft to which Con was attached.

The TV was 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

down the alley that leads to the railway track

where Malky the Alky had a flash of insight

and laid himself down between the train lines.

The train passed straight over and Malky survived,

some people just cannot do anything right.

Now there’s a new plan for stopping a topping

and 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 lost both its goalposts.

Bureaucracy’s moved them to state its position:

the residents draw up another petition.

A perennial game of attack and defence

over 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.

 

Past the barb-wire fencing surrounding the wood

that’s a small tuft of hair on a balding man’s head,

which is soon to be shaven, the signs indicate,

for a cancer has riddled my local estate.

 

Oh, I do it disservice, too much bile and jaundice,

tomorrow the snow may have smoothed every surface

and the buildings resemble a different planet;

one I manage to visit if not quite inhabit.