Yeah that place is a dump
Tastes like poverty:
wide roads,
no one with fuel to ride them.
Casinos and bingo-
coins like wishbones,
dream of swimming in them.
Even here,
shiny leaflets and theatre lights,
the floor cries dust balls,
DIY people for whom ripped clothes are not a choice, for whom
grim North is an inhalation.
The shame of it,
takeaways and silence.
A slogan-slapped bus heralded by the wilted
cardboard common people.
I’m getting out of here you know
words like a disco ball, glitter tongue dreaming.
Isabelle Kenyon is the northern author of 5 poetry chapbooks –recently Indigo Dreams Growing Pains. She is the editor of Fly on the Wall Press. Her short story The Town Talks has just been published with Wild Pressed Books.