The Last New Town

A bleak summary of my year's in Stevenage written on what would have been my father's 74th birthday.

 

And so another death brings me back to a place I swore I would never return to.

 

This is the town which I waited 16 years to leave,

This is the tower block where the man who loved my mother committed suicide,

release from him a parting gift to her and to himself.

This is the hospital where my father learnt he would die,

and to which the snake skin of his body would return.

This is the hand-built greenhouse where my grandfather’s heart stopped,

as he fell to the floor and smashed the geraniums he had nurtured to life.

This is the house that rotted and grew cold, where grief corroded,

And stained my mother’s body and mind.

This is the room in which I held my second father’s hand as he died.

This is the street where I cried as my first love snapped and broke.

This is the shop where I eat fat and sugar dressed as treats.

This is the school that taught me to use snobbery, privilege and class.

This is the lane where the bullies hit me, and easy racism fought back.

This is the bus stop where I stood in every weather for too, too long.

This is the road I walked in bored despair at another endless summer.

This is the park where muggers stole my friend’s sight.

This is the theatre that bored me, and made me doubt my vocation.

This is the hotel where my grandmother’s cancer spread.

This is the underpass I used to scream in.

 

This is the town I grew up in.

 

And though these memories are mine, they are the same as everyone’s.

They blow through the grey, blank streets like litter towards

A gorging landfill sniffing the wind for blood and murmuring,

‘More.’

 

5 May 2009