City

 We hear the city oozing

Breathing and contracting

It’s contours vibrating and retracting

Holding us in

Under the shadow

Of a lunar moon.

 

This city,

This harsh, harsh city

Stretches its arm’s

And sheds it’s brutality.

Sighs its sighs,

And alienates the lonely.

 

It’s incredible heat

A roasting seething heat

Fuelled with a stifling claustrophobia

Seems to conspire,

Without restraint

To make this night a furnace

A wretched cauldron

Of hell and brimstone.

 

One can,

Pass a thousand faces

A thousand expressionless faces

And you can’t place one name,

You can’t see one friendly being.

From the priest to the mugger,

One can’t decipher.

 

This city thrives,

Thrives on distinction,

Thrives on the vulnerable

And it’s only during times

Of mass terror and bombings,

That the inhabitants all pull together,

All muck in, in times of adversity,

But without a major catastrophe,

The stranger is told to f**k off.

 

And one can run

Run through the endless streets

That flows like a cool spring

Spar, into the vast cesspool

Known as metropolis.

Stepping over cracked paving

Stones, past brick work

Dulled by age,

Pass the terraced houses

Arranged together like graves,

That emanates gloom

From their grim sullied frames.

Subsequently intoxicated,

By the fumes and the mire

The city groans in torment

Shedding its pestilence.

 

And one can swim in its sea.

A sea reserved for the blinkered

Caught in an undercurrent

Of aggression and violence,

In a pull of narrow mindedness

That trickles straight to the city centre

A wild rancid centre,

Where every f****r you’ll meet

Seems to know it all.

Where every c**t wants to row you

And send you home

In an ambulance.

 

How many times

Have we swum in this city?

A city of peer pressures and

Defeats, a city of deadlines

And finance, of stocks and shares, and

Staring out the next bloke.

How many times?

How many times have we

Drowned?

How many times

Have we struggled to resurface?

With a size ten trainer

Imprinted on our forehead.

How many times?

 

And if you stop

Stop, look and listen.

Listen carefully and attentively

You can hear the city

Sighing, snoring in slumber

Reminiscing of its past

Proud of former triumphs

Bathing in golden glories.

But no more

Those days are over.

Locked away in a defunct tomb

As the nation struggles for an identity

And wonders where to turn.

 

This city,

This loose canon of industry

This confused mound

Of inadequacy,

Has created various armies.

A secret barracks,

Within its underbelly.

Foot soldiers patrolling their manors

Protecting their zone and areas.

Step into their arenas

And they’ll kick ya f*****g

Head in.

From the shaven headed

Caucasian males,

40 years old and still

Kings of the local boozer.

To the Asian lads

In the East,

Tooled up with chiv’s

And aggression.

Don’t stare in their direction

They’ll stick a blade in ya belly.

Oh city, I’m bored

With the bullshit bravado

Fed up with the peer pressure

My schoolmates made me bear

I’m bored with it all…

A kiss of the teeth

A clench of the fist

Keep ya b*****d head down

If you wanna get home in peace.