‘Those Were the Days My Friend’
Lesley Quayle

Where threats of violence
were feral and unfenced, hackles always raised.

Where skinny legs, rice paper white,
fruited scabs and boys' knuckles were rapped

just for being there, ears pulled, cheeks slapped,
backsides kicked – that makes the boy a man –

the man a cheerless drunk, untalkative and out of reach.
Where women had relationships with doors,

bruises, black smiles, jelly bellies,
slack tits slung like roosting bats.

Where four generations warmed their arses
on a reeking stove, jostling for space

by the oven door, sharing bevvies,
pokes of chips, curry sauce - a laugh,

dogs intimate with toddlers’ greasy lips.
Damp greys and sour greens,

a corporation slum, smelling of rot and mould,
piss, sweat, sex. They’re here,

unflinching, blurred by alcohol and fags,
the habit of chaos, all appetites and bloodlust.

Now the tenements are gone and silence hangs,
like an empty lung. Over my shoulder

the wind bleeds through cracked panes,
banging its stupid head against steel shutters.