The Scene Poem by C.A. Morrow

The acid rain couldn't wash the dirty cobbled street
of Saturday night urine and beer-induced vomit
Sunday morning was the old pensioners only treat
as they stumbled toward church in search of Haley's Comet
Around the Queen Victoria War Memorial gathered rage
The tattooed skinheads that heard Mein Kempf was a town
Overcrowded schools leaving them as fodder for the editorial page
Graffitied beyond recognition: Her Majesty's broken crown
Across the square their nemesis, the disciples of Sid Vicious
The multicoloured-haired burnouts; the left wing in veneration
Wasn't Lenin really a hippie? (me mum thought delicious)
This was the state of a lost empire's new generation
On the corner stood the 'Open 'Til Late' grocery store
as frightened brown faces peered from behind a fortresslike counter
where the anger and racism they daily ignored
as they served a new master whose hate they encountered
Once there was reformation followed by industrialization
Now smokeless chimney stacks is all that remains
As the red row houses circle in stark realization
that 'The Land of Hope and Glory' has no domain
These were the images of that northern town in '79
The unions were being slowly torn down
as privatization was the Tory Party line
promising resurrection of the empire (given time)
Strikes, riots, the slow bleed of the working classes
reduced to dole queues and fights on the football terraces
as the suburbanites raised their crystal sherry glasses
to a new England, where Billy Bragg would perish
Somehow in this murky grey city of haze
we were able to find a mental oasis of light
Down in the Palladium was the craze
between the warm pints and the odd fight
That was where I shared my first kiss
as we were mesmerized by the Joy Division
On that crammed dance floor I found bliss
Away from the insanity and life's daily decisions
My arms wrapped around young innocent love
as Elvis Costello echoed from below the balcony
Isolated from all the anger of classes above,
it was our place, our time, our sanctuary,
our '79.