Best Bedsits Poems
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Old factory was due to be knocked down and turned into rubble, recycle the materials and use the land again. A new start? Yet this building is structurally fine, a few broken windows and missing tiles, the idea of demolition is okay but you lose the heritage and a piece of history. Is that a good thing? How about doing it up and converting it to flats?
Keeping the building intact and preserving history, basic yet interesting dwelling spaces for modern people who want to live someplace different. With loft space flats, basement bedsits and cosy mid building apartments for those who want to a enjoy city life of bars, clubs and the gym.
A man who worked in the factory agrees in saving the building for future generations, industrial heritage now an urban living environment for those who want to buy a new home in an old building.
The 'tock', 'tock', 'tock' of the station clock,
the clickety clack of the board.
Telling the time and destinations
but no one to cry 'All aboard!'
The 'bang', 'bang', 'bang' of the carriage doors,
the shrill of the guards silver whistle.
The announcement that, the next train to arrive,
is the 10:10 from Oswaldtwistle.
Bikes are loaded and bags are stowed,
hikers study their map.
Babies are fed, old men nod their head,
or else simply doff their cap.
A sudden jolt, the clang of a bolt,
the smooth getaway from the station.
The buildings and trees form a colourful frieze
as they blur into perfect striation.
The grey of the town gives way to the gown
of mother natures bounty.
Fields and fells, copses and dells,
as we glide through shire and county.
Tickets are punched, and businessmen lunched,
as snappers take nappers and smile.
The world rushes by in the blink of an eye,
fields stretching for mile upon mile.
Bucolic splendour turns to render
of brick, steel and concrete sprawl.
Railway sidings and hoardings with tidings
of promise and prospects for all.
Graffiti scrawls on lineside walls,
smoke blackened windows with nets.
Glimpses of lives, of husbands and wives,
singletons, bedsits and pets.
And now, journey's end, as friend greets friend
and commuters decamp to the city.
The romance of steam, now a pipe dream,
and the world faster paced, more's the pity.
Fifteen years in the same apartment,
before that twenty-five years in a bungalow.
Earlier still; digs, dumps and bedsits.
Peripatetic ambulation's
traveling in circles.
Left that world, travelled
met myself coming and going.
Saw the reaper
he had the eyes of a child.
Fell in with the dangerous kind,
loved many a bold faced liar,
misused the tender-hearted
spat at the devil; he wore a mask
behind that mask was a loving God
dancing on skulls.
Took a train up to the highest mountain
that a train can reach
and no further,
but it got me here into a recliner
musing over a cold beer
and a string of dwellings
pulled now like empty carriages
behind some derailed thoughts.
Just a quick notification that
A new resident was on his way
Giving us enough time to get
A room ready for him to stay
Not our usual type of client
A Veteran French Legionnaire
It was beyond my pay grade
To know how he’d ended there.
He was going through a crisis
In his domestic civilian life
Needed a break away from
His family and his wife.
The Veteran Brotherhood
Had taken care of it
Referred him on to us
For one of our bedsits.
He’d woken up in hospital
Physically sound and whole
The only surviving member
Of an ambushed recce patrol
With no recollection of how
He’d ended up there,
Or the three days lost that
He’d spent under care.
Discharged back to Blighty
Survivor guilt to the fore
PTSD setting in he just
Couldn’t take anymore.
All this had happened
A good few years ago
But Traumatic Stress Disorder
Can take many years to show.
He stayed just a few months
And, not telling us why
He went back to his wife
Where he'd chosen to die.
Just days before he passed
I was surprised to hear his voice
When he rang me to tell me
Why he made that choice.
Said with Chronic lung disease
He was very near his end
And he wanted to thank me
For being both helper and friend.
Shocked and distraught not
Knowing what to say or do
I let Forces black humour
Help carry us through.
The Brotherhood is International
A mixed and disparate lot
So many times it’s the sad case
Each other is all we’ve got.
Booted and suited by his box
We all took time to think
Drank a toast to his memory, left
Untouched the absent friend’s drink.
Bygones are again beginning.
Big Nose Kate and Doc Holliday
bang and toss China plates,
bothering my ears with their
blooming Southern inhospitality.
Bedbugs, I never want em,
because they bite in the night
bedsits' in Birmingham Alabama
big red marks on my bum.
Bad dream now
beetles crawling up my legs,
brown ones,
Brobdingnagian bugs.
Bangladeshi late-night dinner
blighted the bathroom a bit.
Bored with these bloody bygones
butterfingers strum banjo blue notes.
Brad Pitt hates that redneck hokey,
but I don't care.