Final destination
Swansea Railway Station
Welcome to Swansea Croeso i Abertawe
A commuter WH Smiths, un petite boulangerie,
A classy glass enclosed ticket office with plenty of desks
Step Outside:
The Grand Hotel with its vibrant ground floor bar
The Park Lane Club
Bendy Metro buses with TV screen updates
Special, Super, Diamonds, International
And down at your feet, a line confronting the bard
Ambition is Critical - well, here’s my critique:
Pigeons at home and uncovered platforms
A faux-langerie and an overpriced Smugs
A ticket office that is always closed
Don’t step outside:
The Grand a mass of façade weathered and grey and aged
Like a gossip of pensioners wearing fluorescent socks in the post office on pension day
The Park Lane Club salacious not salubrious
A happy ending massage amid Mos Eisley surroundings
The METROFTR – the bus of a vowel-less future
Unlike the TARDIS inside it is smaller than a regular bus
Time-tabled secrets never to be told
And the news and the weather on the TV screens is three months old.
The bus stop a shelter for the street drinkers
The junkies and the alkies
And the criminally inclined
The bloodied of hand and the addled of mind
Special Vat, Super T, Diamond White, Carlsberg Export
Ambition is Critical? Here’s my irony’s retort:
Ambition is Critical, it’s on life support
Pull the plug and write it off, it’s just not worth the effort
The Bus Stop crew, Dylan Thomas and me
We’ll just sit here and get pissed
Come here friendly bombs, Betjeman picked the wrong town
Please flatten the bits that the Luftwaffe missed.
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AMBITION IS CRITICAL – Dylan Thomas noted Swansea as the ‘Graveyard of Ambition’ and this engraving is Swansea Council’s response. Anagrammatically, some ‘CLAIM IT’S A BIT IRONIC’
SMUGS – In satirical magazine Private Eye, WH Smiths is referred to as WH Smugs
METRO FTR – The so-called BendyBus service. All have TV screens on board, and at some special bus stops too. They display the time, and the news from 19th December 2009.
LUFTWAFFE – The Germans bombed half of Swansea town centre during the war. The bit they bombed is now the nice bit, shopping centre, nice buildings etc.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Poem: Final Destination (not a film)
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Hi
ReplyDeleteI just popped in from the A363 thread to say hi. I enjoyed reading some of your poems, very full of emotion and a real voice. What's wrong with Swansea though? I had a lovely Easter weekend there a couple of years ago...:-) Not the same as living somewhere, I know.
I did like the little castle ruin thing up the coast even if the park was full of winos. Best thing was finding some secret graffiti on the back of it's noticeboard - a handprint with 'At least I'm not you' on it. I love finding little random bits of art/protest/interesting grafitti. ~One day I might write a story about the person who made that.
FB
oh no, I love Swansea.
ReplyDeleteJust the 200 yards north of the railway station, untouched by German bombers, that I have issue with.
And as I spend approx 3 hours a week there, waiting for buses that are inevitably delayed, I have reason to.
I've met alkies, junkies, professional street sleepers, recently released from prison attempted murderers, and lots of other lovely people there over the years.
It truly is a social whirlwind!