My Town

My town, with its street names plucked, as lottery prizes

From a random generator, by Oliver,

the council’s latest internship drudge

Insipid epithets like “Maple End” and “Bluebird lane” emerge,

writ monochrome in aluminium, as if from a giant Dymo

My town, with its overblown plant displays

Strategically placed beside litter bins

(bearing the helpful inscription “Waste”,

lest they be mistaken for Roman amphorae)

Coupled thus, to mitigate the vulgarity of the lowly refuse vessel

My town, with its hackneyed, insincere chumminess

“Welcome to” and “Thanks for visiting”,

book-ending the featureless ring road

These pallid inducements dwarfed, at intervals,

by the signage of three ubiquitous supermarkets, proclaimed sky-high

My town, with its quaint early-English church

Its doddering flock, still pretending that it has some spiritual purpose

while knowing that it is destined to be the next branch of Beds4U

A cringing exhortation to Sunday Service,

withers on the grub-chewed notice board

My town, its heart, long-since surgically removed by capitalist drift

Now serving only as a dormitory for most who live here

A location conveniently close to a branch line service

Which, each day, transports its cargo to livelier places

where corn is earned, and pleasure taken

My town, your town, most people’s town

With its naïve band of civic worthies

Still harbouring the fallacy that somewhere nearby,

a mythical well of community spirit lies undrawn,

which could rekindle a sense of local pride