Cleaning the rain of my glasses.




Once proud in the late 1950's,
it has endured,
all the things that made us happy,
a magazine on plastic model cars,
some bath crystals in jars,
a cafe, cheap and cheerful,
young girls on the dazzling pull,
trying to make a wet day in Aldridge,
more grateful than it is.

The rain drops of buildings,
that would have frightened the Romans,
Druid's Heath golf club,
awaits those with generational patience.

A young family gathers in a corner,
smoke some fags,
before dancing through the rain.

We can afford the meat in the butchers,
that's been well turned out for sixty years.

Birmingham calls them crumpets,
the Black Country calls them pikelets,
simple things that define us,
as constancy and love.

A Rover comes down the road,
as if it had just left the line in Longbridge.

~