The Building Site (Walsall 2009) Poem by John Rickell

Hoardings shouting at the street,
those in buses reading as they pass
of perfume, razor blades and Guinness,
selling space and advertising
keeping secret from the public
the future of their city,
where JCBs move piles of earth
to mould a future better than the past.

Where once workers toiled,
houses cheek-by-jowl
terrace rows and corner shop
midst laughter, spinning tops and shawls
smutted wash lines wall to wall.
Evening pubs with glittering mirrors
nicotine ceilings, sawdust floors,
counters lined with glasses,
as hooters sound the end of day
on the way to home, to crowded streets,
like seagulls on the cliffs at Flambro'
(how did they know which nest?) .
wife and kids around the table,
scrubbed and white no cloth to hide the knots,
armchair for Dad, stools for the kids,
chair beside the sink for Mam.
Pigeons to feed and whippets,
shoes to sole and wood to chop,
fishing canals for roach and pike
barges low with coal and pots from Stoke.
Smells of tanning, thumping hammers,
freight trains through the night,
flashing furnace fires, bed by ten and up at six
Blake's Jerusalem on a school piano.
The building site (Walsall UK 2009)
Hoardings shouting at the street,
those in buses reading as they pass
of perfume, razor blades and Guinness,
selling space and advertising
keeping secret from the public
the future of their city,
where JCBs move piles of earth
to mould a future better than the past.

Where once workers toiled,
houses cheek-by-jowl
terrace rows and corner shop
midst laughter, spinning tops and shawls
smutted wash lines wall to wall.
Evening pubs with glittering mirrors
nicotine ceilings, sawdust floors,
counters lined with glasses,
as hooters sound the end of day
on the way to home, to crowded streets,
like seagulls on the cliffs at Flambro'
(how did they know which nest?) ,
wife and kids around the table,
scrubbed and white no cloth to hide the knots,
armchair for Dad, stools for the kids,
chair beside the sink for Mam.
Pigeons to feed and whippets,
shoes to sole and wood to chop,
fishing canals for roach and pike
barges low with coal and pots from Stoke.
Smells of tanning, thumping hammers,
freight trains through the night,
flashing furnace fires, bed by ten and up at six
Blake's Jerusalem on a school piano.