My Town

This town is not my town. Mine hummed with trams.
It’s sky framed with electric wires to give them life.
And flush-railed roads to make these beasts bend to our will.
No traffic lights to regiment, but human touch, white gloved police.

The buildings of my town had character, they drew the eye.
Their faces gave one echoes of past cultures at their height.
Classic columns fronted banks, bespoke solidity.
Today’s anthills of soulless mirrored glass no place.

Department stores and not your shoebox-shops in malls.
Aladdin’s caves with tearooms, selling almost everything.
With liftmen calling floors, detailing that floor’s merchandise.
We customers were really king, need scarcely lift a hand.

We saw our breweries’ wagons making keg deliveries
Their Clydesdales proudly stepping out, coats groomed with love
Their tack show-quality, immaculate, with brasses bright.
Whip cracks called our attention. Advertising at its best

My town was Friday theatre for one wide-eyed three-year-old.
Window displays, true visual art, its stage decor.
Shop ladies, draymen, liftmen, ticket-clippers, trod its boards.
Its stars? Those miming, white-gloved, ballet dancers who bossed cars.