Anglia Square - Oh you wounded beast!

Anglia Square

Of your fearful symmetry I was afraid. I was young then, and could only relate you to houses covered in Christmas lights, a dog dragging its backside across a carpet, a man hiding in the leylandii.  Now, you are much more the slant of light in a shady room, the wind-farm out to sea, the echo on a school field. Oh you wounded beast! You council designated demolition job! There are fragments of love messages caught in your barbwire. I will read some to you:  “Potatoes 2, XXL”, “Summat for the baby”, “...the thing I can’t remember”. Or how about this: “I hear the Police dogs howling in the spiral stairs.” Further out, signs of diss-respekt plastered on the walls, ATL CREW, IN YER MANNER. Far cry from the planners who dreamt of you as a town within a city; a concrete and glass perplex, with Hollywood cinema, the cardboard wookie and droids, guardians of a future discarded like a fag packet. In your centre a little train follows a circular track, a man with a placard[1] stands and speaks in your voice to the pigeons, ‘entropy, entropy, they’ve all got it in for me’. The car tyres scream in your upper reaches; dirty puddles reflect the endless, ambivalent blue, and I stand and stroke you like a stranded whale on a wintered beach. I whisper in your ear like a child: “Sleep now mister whale, sleep now and dream no more.”

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[1] “Massive Card Sale Today – Birthdays, Weddings, Funerals, Xmas”