Town Without Pretty

Being a tale of a town that wants to be a city.

Citizens bask in glory baptising
in the small town of Tranquility
in the month of downsizing
to a state of green humility.

And on canine crutches of anguish
tongues wagging with scandal
the dogs of war languish
by the well’s rusty handle

Across from the School of Demolishing
where the headmaster quarrels
Major Smith resumes polishing
his collection of morals,

finding it harder and harder
their tarnishing to allay,
but unable to stop
for fear of public dismay.

After turning her living room
upside down in myopia,
Ms X breaks the loom
of her lost cornucopia,

having found, in disgust:
no cause for concern;
Jesus and lust
And a stick of luscerne.

The last she discards
in the perfumed pink bin
that loiters at her back door
like a dust hungry djinn.

Deep on Parable Street, desolate
With their age at the door
Able & Mandy play games
of control on the floor.

Their children, resigned,
nod their heads in agreement,
knowing no other option,
their thoughts in concealment.

And in this game so erratic
The kids gave up learning
They hide in the attic
Of the school of mild yearning

Mandy clucks like a hen
as her thoughts wildly scatter
Able’s disapproving tone spills
from his lip to besplatter

the green carpet they bought
from the sale of desperate years
with the love that they built
in a back street in Algiers.

I watch from the window,
of this little black tower;
I’m the madman on Main Street
And they expect me to cower

I can hear Pretty laughing
her high pitched bird twitter
in the studio next door
where she creates her art litter

from threads of her hair yellow
and thoughts from head empty.
I imagine her boring
her lover aged seventy

a husk of a man
with a narcissistic fringe;
whom she discovered in her bed
after a choc-latte binge.

She squeaks in deliverance
of how the world works,
her voice like cold helium
in the afternoon ignorance.

The grass has turned blue
on the lawn by the shed,
blue as the thoughts
in Mr Melancholy’s head,

blue as the veins of
bitter distrust
that pollute the lit mind
with calamine rust

blue as the hair
that writhes with unrest
obscuring gay tattoos
on Constable Conservative’s chest.