What you having for eats?

Tin rounds gleam

Shine on high

Hit the sky

They say it’s a derelict town

And there’s not much to go around.

Whilst the foreign secretary causes a stir

And they all concur that Brexit means Brexit

And the guy at the only pub open around here

Thinks about what he’s gonna make for afters

The beers coming out the draft in rafters

Strong dark bitter sickly

And the older man answers the phone

In his best voice thickly –

‘What you having fer eats?’

‘What – are you – having – for – eats?’

‘What. Are. You Having. For Eats?’

‘There’s 4 slices of ham. From Tesco, £2.40 a pack.’

‘I think I’ll have a salad love.’

‘Got some corned beef in t’fridge for later.’

They tell me meanwhile that Theresa May is gurning

Firmly in the commons

But all I can see is beautiful red brick factories

not in use any longer

And shops with peeling pop stars

from the 70’s curling yellowly off windows

Don’t need art.

Don’t need services -

But there are plenty of Barbers.

Leave the old records in the larder

Alongside the bread and dripping

We used to have for afters.

It’s all we had then –

And now the mud we tried to scrape off in the city

Is as sought after as plastic was in the ‘50’s.

Or when ready made meals were the height of civility

But now a salted single woman’s curse –

Discarded packets left on the hearse.

You ate alone in your bedroom thinking

Of tin pot communal meals in back gardens.

It’s moments where you look into dusty, unloved windows

That you see outside from the fringes

That being something that is living is really considered a given.

In a life of being something you begin to carve your own prison

In the dream of making it – this is Broken Big City, Big Dream Britain.