Ode to Stoke.

Clusters of noise, swamps of shopping bags

Descending in ages which are cross breeding and interacting

Violently

Thieves picking the crowds’ pockets

To find dust and giros

McDonalds is at war. Ravenous, clumsy middle aged something

People screaming at napkins through passing elderly...

Who stopped for a latte and lost Costa a while back

Huddling youth, randy under milkshakes and fries

And of course

That fucking screaming baby

Whose mother is outside dealing to the owner of pound land.

Through the littered alleyways, just past weather spoons

Next door but one is sleeping with the man who impregnated her daughter

But don’t panic

Jeremy Kyle has been contacted.

The Issue man is under threat again

Beside where Woolworths used to be

Which is now the home

To worn out mothers where their children

Go to Playcare

Whilst they stand in a cloud of smoke, wondering..

What to have for tea.

The bus shelter leaks havoc

And homeless

The last place in the world, I am

Here

Crammed next to miss thirteen

Turned thirty blowjobs, with a new mobile

Who can’t stop talking on it to the ex

Who can’t stop having sex with her mate Katie.

But God bless Stoke on Trent

Incestuous, glorious town

I love you still.