A Poem for Home

Disused factory chimneys
Penetrating the sky.
Their black smoke fertility
Now resting impotent.

They stand useless and erect
A symbol of former importance.
The hills roll to a halt behind them,
Canals that once fed stagnate.

My Grandfather
Photographed this whole town.
The history was his
Detailed in, now, discarded slides.

A reminder that all things
Are eventually lost.
Boarded up shops stand where
Those men in flat caps once did.

This concrete necropolis mirrors
The sky, an endless stretch of grey.
Abandoned cars are engulfed
In dancing orange flames.

The places my Father played
As a child have gone.
Tesco’s tarmac covering places
Lost to history, like a fading memory.

My childhood now
Almost forgotten,
Swallowed by this town
And spat out, rejected.

Lying sterile and ignored
In semi-detached suburbia.
Surrounded by sepia coloured gardens
Where I played bored and alone.

Before being consumed by
Temporary McJobs,
In featureless offices
That replaced workhouses.

Assimilated into binge drinking,
Culture praising narrow thinking,
BNP Posters line the streets,
As everyone else fell into

Everyone else’s beds.
I watched the TV instead.
Subtitles substituting as
A lazy form of modern literature.