“There are so many people”, he tells me.
Cherubic faces congregate in the playground below.
Miniature human traffic in maroon and plaid
Waving earnestly to Gran or Mum or Dad
As they let go of hands and are soon departed.
S is for – Sports Socks
Two for TEN pound.
Times have changed,
Become estranged and re-arranged
From the Halcyon times.
If we could only rewind
We would see…
Something better?
Something different certainly.
A town that still flourished.
A youth that was nourished
On the hope
That things could only get better,
While in truth they just got wetter
And we were all in it together –
This cost of capitalism crisis –
But, “it’s sound”.
C is for – Coffee
Bracken brown
Like the colours of my mind
Whose leaves are surely dying.
I sit now in Venice
Amidst the mid-morning melancholics
Sipping their percolated fruits, sighing.
What became of this place
Where once we thought a great epic was beginning?
Like the classroom tales of kelpies and whales vying
For attention. Not to mention the singing.
Somewhere indiscernibly overhead screeches Sex On Fire
Back to Black with the Backstreet Boys “Tell Me Why”ing.
The music perks my spirits up, so I lift a crenelated cup
And order another cappuccino, because, why not?
“Is that ok?” I ask permission. Why do I do that? I’m buying.
Is it not best to keep up the pretence of functionality?
The banality broken by the dark dusting
Of some saccharine powder, while, in the distance, a wean is crying.
H is for – Habitual
We walk
And mock
The same old haunts
And taunts
From weans
Who drained
Our will to stay
Back in the day,
And yet
I bet
There’s nae regret.
Their course was set,
Or so we say.
O is for – Office
From the classroom to the cubicle.
Confirmation that we are merely cogs.
I gaze out beneath the clock,
Seeking some familiar friendly face.
There are few to be found,
But at least here there’s something I recognise.
There is a Smiths that’s not a smith’s.
That is to say it’s been here since
My grandparents’ day, and it does not shoe
But it sells them for the great return.
A proud young buck, full of promise,
Strides down streets of crumbling dreams beneath
His feet, scarcely knowing the odds
He is to face, and I lament my own.
O is also for – Ofsted
Although that’s not what we call it.
We imbibe the language of the imperialist
For things we know only full well
We have other grandiose terms to sell.
Families uproot themselves to find
The place that’s greatest for their minds,
And I’m as guilty as the rest,
Enduring all for what is ‘best’.
The stress, on teacher as on student,
Is surely far from what is prudent.
What if there is a bad report?
Game over? Nothing of the sort.
But we create neuroses now
Within a system Chairman Mao
Would nod his head and re-approve,
So if the school’s not right, we move.
L is usually for – Loss
The loss of innocence is nothing untoward.
The loss of hope is something else entirely.
Too many of those grasping for the sword
Have lost their way to lust and impropriety.
For what else is there in a land so torn,
Where children need to ask if they are special?
The writing’s on the wall from they are born,
Regardless of the brilliance of their vessel.
And so we paint their smiles upon our face.
We tell them that the world is theirs for taking.
We know that it’s a lie, yet we still chase
The dreams we held when our first dawns were breaking.
“There are so many people”, he tells me.
They haven’t even started.
