Why I Left London Poem by Gary Diamond

London had brought out
more of the worst in me
and on low paying jobs
wasn’t much at all.

I was getting tired of failure
tired of not having a band
and a girl,
tired of seeing the once-great
capital
as a haven to immigrants
of all kinds
immigrants stepping on tradition and
spitting out our language
in all the wrong ways.

It brought home the fact
that we’d lost the Empire
we’d lost British Steel;
even our sports car makers
were owned by Americans
and Russians.

Probably best
we dropped
the great part
from
Great Britain
because it's now
ironic.