Give Me Back My Town Poem by Chris Darlington

Give Me Back My Town by Chris Darlington
Looking up one day at the new Deck flats by the canal
I thought, this is not Runcorn nothing like it, nothing matches.
No beautiful dawn can rise up there in the clouds as is does on the packed tiny terraced streets below.
All the flats seem to do is look down on us and sneer.
As old men and women walk about old familiar streets they are not seen as living history as they are to me, only as tiny grey specks like marks on reading glasses.
I take off my own glasses and wipe them in response and find them damp with condensation not tears.
Give me back my town I scream inside as the pain begins to hurt.
Someone is waving at the old people from a small high up window thinking those below are really toys not human at all.
I put on my glasses again walking boldly in to bright autumn sunlight, I shout give me back my town this is not Runcorn nothing like it.
I hear no response from the new Deck flats, only an eerie silence and somebody shuts a tiny window.