Thank you, John Betjeman,
Thank you, John Betjeman,
There is no redemption
In rumination
It is not in the gift
Of any one person
To erase the past
Change the process
Of remembrance
The weight of introspection
Is a constant presence
Perhaps there is no focus
To the world
Other than the one we give ourselves
Centre me
It is a natural phenomenon
A true narcissist
May still believe
They have empathy
Enough to spare
Once their own feelings
Have been taken into account
Are we all good people
Waiting to be found
If I was a town
It would be Slough
I may have missed
A wartime blitz
Whilst other places
And more deserving cases
Than me
Were swept away
But I am still standing
John Betjeman was right
To make the call
For friendly bombs to fall
To smash into smithereens
A fragile worthless vanity
So precariously built
On the shiftless sand
Of self-absorption
Flatten me
With a bulldozer
Peel away the skin
It is a barely adequate cover
For a baked bean tin
Break me open
There is nothing solid
But the veneer is real enough
An affordable desk from Ikea
Broken before the last
Screw
Has shot its bolt
The only place left to go
Is the dump
Unlike the fate of Slough
There is no way through
This slump
Of terminal obsession
Centred on self
Regardless of expression
A fallow field
Stripped of mindful
Resolution
Guilty of incoherence
Ignorant of self-governance
And the futility
Of rural planning
In the face
Of private space
Individualism
And ill-conceived
Intra-psychic indiscretion
Thankful
Of a lesson learned
I am not Slough
Not then
When or even now.