A grammar school education

didn’t spare me British Leyland;

post-continental drift saw me slip

into the pits of Birmingham

onto the slow track my path  

should’ve been turning from.

Just a temporary shift - like the duppies

and the muppets had sniffed

before their brains became flaccid  

and got caught up in the gears  

in which night and day were plaited.

Everything was automatic –

but you had to be there

 

and punch yourself in and out     

as mini-avatars descended from the stars

for the trim and spit and polish

of the bodies draped in homage

over exterior, interior and bonnet.

The rattle of chains ran through our veins

and coloured men grey, moulded them

to the rhythm of the track,

to the drag of the magnet.

 

I was the relief man, the filler-in.

When you were in need of a fag or crap,

or your nervous breakdown was nigh,

I’d take your part for 5 or 10 minutes

or the remainder of your life.

 

Some say we struck for higher pay,

to further aspirations or promote a revolution.

More likely, self-preservation: the fear of three stops up,

the barmy house that locked and bolted  nuts;

it must have seeped through our Unconscious

when we stumbled out the pubs every evening

and weekend, where we supped

to bring on oblivion.

A vacation from automation,

a finger off the button.

 

Dominoes at dinnertimes

with young Rastas and old Jamaicans;

I and I in Brummie accents, 

learning a fresh language of duppies,

Zion and mashin’, smashing down the spots

as if daring the machine to reawaken.

My missus started packing me pizzas

and quiches and they’d roll their eyes

in jealousy and wonder, slap me on the shoulder

and assure me that it wouldn’t last.

 

The day I told them I was quitting  

to do Psychiatric Nursing

I could see the buzz run up the track,  

the assembly line silenced and stopped

and the shop rocked with laughter.

We’ll catch you later, they roared,

catch you later three stops up.

 

I don’t come past that often

the ruins of The Austin

and the vanished asylum.

There’s barely a pub left open in Longbridge,

though the streets are swollen

with cars and drunks and madmen.

Long gone the duppies and dominoes falling.