West Street Memorial Garden

Gravestone congregations stand

In corners 'neath the trees,

Council workmen cut the grass,

Trim the boughs and clear the leaves.

Groups of seats sit vacant,

Blown by a broken wind,

Shattered glass, crushed cigarettes

Surround the empty bins.

A weed-filled central island

Holds a memory to War's dead,

Dots of colour here and there

Form an intermittent flowerbed.

An audience of terraced houses

Echo edifices monuments standing tall,

People march bisecting paths,

No-one sits or strolls.

I leave because I find no peace,

For the living or the dead,

Only a sense of abandonment,

"Thy will be done"

A gravestone read.