Postcard From Basildon Poem by Dermot McGarthy

(For Music Lovers Everywhere)


A Central European girl,
Of all the things to do,
Wasted her Sunday afternoon,
Humming down outdated tunes,
On worn out street corners,
Awed, and brand new.
The place was empty,
Of the pictures in her head,
The made up faces,
Who they saw, what they said.
Felled by the axe of history,
Pubs, clubs, houses, and lives,
Saved in the souvenir of a song, forever,
As time and place contrive.

That’s why they wrote those songs, I told her,
That’s why they always do,
To lasso in, the heart of imagination,
To brand it, and,
Make it’s illusion true.
There are no postcards from this place,
A pinpoint on a map,
Made familiar, by a face.
Just a town to come from,
To grow up in, and,
Then to leave.
Where wondrous, simple, and brutal things,
Are born perennial,
Timeless to retrieve.