Posted in Rituals

Now and Then

Posted on by tq1695

The city’s working life began here
founded
amongst foundries and warehouses
no place for beauty
or time for frill.
Masculine
haloed with smoke
coal breathed
stinking and wet clothed
cold watered
in your face sewerage.
Cramped cottages
estranged from comfort
segregated from affluence.
Cut to
boutique shopping
shining four-wheel drives
designer lofts
dead factories reborn as apartments
pedigree children.
The ghosts turn and shake their heads,
there must be some mistake.

Advertisement

Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.