Presto
All of a sudden, the town sort of changed,
As though the years had heaped all their dust in one go,
Reshaping the atmosphere and structure,
Erecting a darker, more feral architecture.
I sat on a bench in the square with a Diet Coke,
A Café Crème silently smouldered in my fingers,
And the ambience bristled, dangerous sensations
Tingling playfully along my gooseflesh arms.
When I was a kid, I remembered, it had felt safe,
Sure it looked crab-apple old, but solid;
Now slightly surreal – a Kebab Shop, a Cost Cutter,
Peddled addictions in the stead of grocers and cafes.
And the windows, once lit, once bright and wide,
Inviting day and night casual window shoppers;
Wares now squirreled away, shut behind steel and mesh,
Blinded produce, unless you have X-Ray eyes.
A car blazed past, peeling paint, hubcaps spraying rain,
The driver wore a reversed baseball cap,
His boombox roared culture of nine-thousand miles distant:
“Yo, mutha, today you die – rat-at-at-tat – today you die…!”
I smoked and drank coke and felt my childhood expire,
It had been years since I sat beside the Great War Cenotaph,
Yet the life that had died so very long ago for me,
Felt as though it had suddenly passed just then.
Copyright © Tony Bush | Year Posted 2005
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