A Ballad of Stockings and Sandstone or A Goodbye to the Town of My Birth
by @reece
Sweet home, sweet home I shall leave you tomorrow
Tires that tumble across complex scars upon the Earth
Under lofty bridges, over the romantic river,
past the whole length of shops that litter the town
Every location, a memory stands
As I perch upon the benches,
of the Walter Parker VC memorial square
Observing this community of mine
The young mother with a brood in tow,
and the lonely old grubber, pondering as he strolls
O sweet symphony, the cars and the folk
A rhythm from the heart of a proletariat town
O damned government, the backdrop and burden
Sweet old lady she mumbles sedately, filled bags and pulled up socks
The youngster creeps and hides his face, the crippled wolf he is
Human in profile alas, cold blooded so it seems
Falling from that rock of Bob's
Much in the same vein as his ambition years earlier
O lonely car park, treading upon your solid concrete
Roaming in circles
Reading aloud, the prose poems of Baudelaire
Reminiscing on childhood wonder,
and the park in which I used to play
Soviet in style before renovation
Set alight multiple times, the skate ramps,
vandalism is rampant in such conditions
The place in which I often witnessed true cinema
And the Methodists disembark from their church
Comforted and clean, their children squirm and pray for freedom,
and the red sandstone looms with pungent fields of livestock at it's foot
More cars, more cars, there are always more cars
Everybody headed some place
Converging at la Roche
Hemlock, Hemlock, curse you Hemlock
Your shadows cast are but stains on the town
The addiction is rampant, but nobody is addicted to life
Not anymore, not like they used to be
The Saxon stone cross too casts a shadow, cruel shadow
O forgive me dear prisoner,
the labour was cruel and the scars of your body remain
Plastering our land with tarmac flesh wounds
The wars were fought by the men of this town
Their names a reminder of futility and sadness
Vein, so very vein the way in which they were sacrificed
But as is the very nature of our fair surroundings
Death plays a vital role,
beginning with those behemoth brothers from two million years ago
The grandiose escape plan implemented
and the tank completely full
I say goodbye to ones I hold dear
and set sail to foreign lands
For tomorrow I shall wake as a new man
The cliche shall only work if I mourn my loss first
To murder a man is abhorrent , suicide too
But to crucify one's own ego and to walk without pride and free yourself from judgement, to believe in the unity of the stars and to learn from every land near and far. To lay within the long grass, to speak with the sky, to fly, O to fly. To run wild, maddening, screaming for life, to hold each and every woman and call her your wife. To love every man equally and to play with every child, to sample every fruit and to use the earth to maintain a constant high. O too gaze into the distance with wonder and imagine every memory, the intricacies of the people you shall meet and beauty of the land in which you walk.
And to realise how perfect this life of ours is,
O my friend it's a beautiful thing.