Broken promises, broken hearts.
Shattered dreams and egos gone astray.
Trampled underfoot ,
At key stage half ,
A pound of tuppeny rice.
Not nice and no escape,
From the concrete jungle.
Now tarted up with a chip shop,
A convenience store,
And two filling stations.
The sailors came and went.
Moving on to better things.
Even if their kids, bewildered,
And amazed could put down,
No roots, put up no leaves.
No crown of green.
Now the concrete walkways,
Have been painted a brighter,
Shade of grey.
Where the shades of long gone,
Hopes and aspirations,
Flit in despair, hiding,
In the upturned litter bins,
And in the discarded mattresses,
In the woods behind the flats.
Some children sell drugs,
And mock their parents.
Holding up rolls of paper money.
In derision, thinking they,
Are better, because they,
Are not unemployed.
Or unemployable.
Stolen dreams where dreamers,
Fantasize in garish colours the,
Episodes of soaps on,
Yesterday’s tee vee.
Having given up what they never,
Really believed they had.
A lifestyle lived by,
Pop stars, soccer players,
And other slaves of the,
Entertainment industry’s,
Ugliness and lies.
A lifestyle lived by doctors,
By lawyers, by gangsters,
The succesful and the bad.
Promises of youth ,
Of questing minds,
For glamour and for gloss.
Yearning hearts for love,
For romance, for glory,
And for God.
The glory gone and,
All around the dust of death.
Smells of decay and,
Cold winds blowing,
Dirt and litter through,
Streets which echo to,
The sounds of conflicts,
Of quarrels and of deceit.
Minds ground down with make-
Believe, and the empty sameness,
Of grisly grey existence.
Woodland just a fence away.
But illicit joys beckon,
To concrete land where,
The colours, so much brighter,
Inside your head.
When fuelled by fumes,
Of solvents, by resin,
And by glue.
But the nights are cold;
And dark the lonely corridors,
Of captive minds.
And we warm ourselves,
With taped delights.
A horror monster,
Spine tingling chill of death.
Corruption, graves or laugh,
Uproariously, at misfortunes,
Not our own.
So in the false light
And warmth of the fires,
We have kindled.
We pretend to warm ourselves.
We turn away pretending,
Not to see the eyes.
Nor to hear the growls,
Of circling menace,
Just beyond the circle,
Of our limited bleak existence.