Sounds Like a Poem

Schemies waive the working world

And dance on poverty’s plight

Police put cameras in the lift cars

Sounds like a poem that I would write

Dawn raids drown in dub house disco

Eyes dilated from drugs and fright

Children playing in cool oblivion

Like everything’s alright

Rainwater runs down classroom windows

Streaks that bathe in the late sunlight

Young mums gather on sharp street corners

Tear away dogs that bite

Weather worn men with BetFred pens

Tense up as the racing pack takes flight

Laundromat ladies swimming in bedsheets

Washing everything white

Gun-metal beams announce the moon

To silhouette gangs just out of sight

Briskly building walls of shadow

From coconut shafts of light

Trailer park kids mark skills with skids

In the dreadnought deep of Saturday night

Catcalls ricochet through the subways

Shrill graffiti

Urban might

Everyone nods

They know my name

I’m shaping up safe and sound and tight

Few now quiz my fading accent

Nobody picks a fight

All these souls will line the pews

Of the precinct church that sleeps tonight

Nine hours hence we’ll sing low hymns

And ancient wisdoms cite

Market stalls will line the streets

With colours and smells of pure delight

Kids run slalom through the boxes

Everyone here’s polite

Media hacks will call our town

In a bid to hurt and disunite

It never works

It makes us stronger

Sounds like a poem that I should write