spaghetti junction

[Jerrybaldy]

Nobody climbs the trees anymore
Streams run untroubled
By boymade dams
Comics unthumbed
Dens unmade
Petals unplucked
To make perfume
Milk unshaken
To make cream
Cans unkicked
Doors unknocked
By kids who run away
Lamposts unclimbed
Dandys unmade
Capguns are silent
Theatres are full of miss Saigon
Andrew Lloyd f ucking webber
No gang show
Nobody sings anymore
Just kara f ucking oke
Plastic fantastic
Concrete
Souless buildings
Functional
Thank god for malls
Costa f ucking fortune coffee
Subway would be sandwiches
Ronald mc f ucking mc Donald
Play hopscotch with me until tea time
Lets be bloodbrothers I have a blade
Lets go to bed in the sunshine
Closed behind the curtains
Lets walk the pier afraid of the gaps
Chase the ice cream van
Get covered in mud that
Cracks on our cheeks as it dries
Bath on a Sunday in weekly hot water
We can catch a train and lean out the window
Watching back yards
Until black stains paint our faces
Lets sleep held tight by sheets and blankets
Nostalgia aint what it used to be
But where the f uck is the soul
this sunny screenlit day?

[Jack of Hearts]

Ah Baldy, to be a boy again... Remember it like it was yesterday.

Of course they wouldn't be manmade dams. It's boys who make 'em. And nostalgia ain't what it used to be.






J

[Hawkman]

"Did, did you see the frightened ones?
Did, did you hear the falling bombs?
Did, did you ever wonder
why we had to run for shelter
when the promise of a brave new day
unfurled beneath a clear blue sky?

Did, did you see the frightened ones?
Did, did you hear the falling bombs?
The flames are all long gone
but the pain lingers on.

Goodbye blue sky,
goodbye blue sky,
goodbye."

(Roger Waters)

Sorry JB, but your poem brought me here for some reason. There's plenty of anger and invective in your diatribe against the modern world to offset those blue remembered hills, but are things really so bad and were things ever that good? I wonder, is it the lost childhood one laments, or the mindset of the child that found pleasure and delight in just being alive? In my case at least, I suspect it's the latter.

A good read.

Live and be well - H

[Jerrybaldy]

Thanks Jack, it sure aint ;)

Hi Hawk
I quite agree, think it is mainly being a child that is lamented. I think your Pink Floyd connection may have come from this:
Nobody climbs the trees anymore is reminscent of the line ' and no one kills the children anymore' from ' The Gunners Dream' on 'The Final Cut' and also my reference to Andrew Lloyd ***** Webber :) is undoutedly influenced by Roger's nod to him on his solo album
'Amused To Death'.

It didnt occur to me until you said. You know me better than I do :)
Did you check my response to your John Cooper Clarke comment on my 'Go Bob' posting.

Cheers Birdman
JB

[DieterM]

Jerrybaldy,

this sounds like an echo to that weird wave of boyhood-nostalgia that has come sweeping over me recently. Must've something to do with the early summer heat (that, alas, didn't last very long) reminding me of how holidays felt back when I was little. Must've something to do as well with me turning 40 in a month (btw, what's YOUR excuse? LOL). Anyway, I really really enjoyed your poem, it rang several unmistakable bells in me. The swearwords reinforced the whole feeling of helplessness, of us being so utterly powerless because we can't bring back neither those days (that weren't perhaps as fabulous as we remember them) nor our deep & healthy liberty of ignoring so many things! Thanks for sharing!

[Hawkman]

Hi JB. yes, I did and I'm not surprised :D Your work has always made me think of JCC. lol. Funny about the Pink Floyd angle though. I guess we must be in tune, at least for the moment ;)

Live and be well - H