The countryside lay beyond our garden fence,

a pasture of cows and their excrement;

the neglected neighbour, the alien;

we lived in the last house in Birmingham.

Unpeopled, uncurtained, unpleasantly green,

and so base, the bare face of the earth being seen

without any concrete to cover its shame -  

I was glad when its cheek had been tarmacked and tamed.

 

A legendary beast of unspecified species

inhabits the dingle up on Frankley Beeches;

locals claim to have spotted the odd UFO,

but what's wrought this havoc in the valley below?

Wild animals? Wrecking balls? Unearthly powers?

We're swinging and shaking to collapsing towers -

it's A Scheme for Urban Regeneration!

I'm glad to glimpse life under Occupation.

 

A few shops remain that aren't darkened and hollow,

it's slight odds against that they'll be there tomorrow 

at the Bookies where wagers weigh down the shelves;

the street signs direct you to try somewhere else

on the newly built bypass that's breaking the heart

where the unemployed loiter without credit cards;

the swagger has staggered back into a slouch

and I'm glad that he's died within our last house.

 

From the garden I gaze in my funeral suit:

in his last years my Dad called it Little Beirut,

where drug dealers drink up the dregs of drug takers 

and Chav Town's the sneer of the local newspapers

as unmarried mothers with poor fashion sense

push their lager and fags past our garden fence.

There are watershed marks that the old shouldn't see

and I'm glad he's delivered from this purgatory.

 

Made a last house visit and felt just like looters,

thought Little Beiruters might break in and shoot us

and murder detectives would comb us for clues -

the blood on the hands, the mud on the shoes -

and conclude that a drug deal had likely gone wrong

or someone had turned up where they don't belong.

But that never happened, I got out in time,

I'm glad we weren't caught at the scene of the crime.