I was born by the side of a walking freak-show

 

under neon signs shadowed by hookers arses and big Prince’s Cadillacs’

 

In foul-smelling alleys I suckled from a fake tit-bottle next to wasted military men

 

with long beards who drank the long track

 

pushing shopping trolleys with their lives all in

 

And this city was my playground

 

The neighborhood squabbles my entertainment

 

The slaps and hair-pulling my action movie

 

The lady blooded and laddered in the gutter my horror fest

 

I tread these streets

 

I touch the peeling walls, the clattering pipes, the rotting toilet stench

 

I pump the heartbeat of the sidewalks

 

The soul of the folks

 

The brat machines cluttering the stoops

 

The vendors pushing their wares

 

The dealers selling escape

 

The bottle offering a blur

 

The vomit glittering in rain drain

 

The filth of life washing down rusting vents

 

I know and die with these streets

 

just a little

 

day in day

 

The Forger singing laments

 

in his vest

 

A lonely grandmother sups from a wrapped beer bottle

 

regretting over metal stairways

 

The little lad with the lazy leg

 

hustling for slices for his housebound mother

 

The rock junkie slashes a suit for coin

 

A lonely Goth slashes her wrists for comfort

 

An obese fast food fiend trolls to fell frustration

 

I feel all these hurts

 

All the pains and belly aches

 

All the sweat of disappointment

 

All the drowning of dreams

 

in a sea of facades

 

I stand and scream

 

along-side a mother

 

taking a selfie

 

at the feet

 

of another gang statistic

 

I drag my sorry arse through the garbage to work with the boys

 

on a site of construction

 

for better places

 

But not for us