A poem I wrote in 1997....

Grey clouds pile up and drag their rain through a deserted street.
A cruel wind wanders through a back green and fans the ash of a dying fire.
An abandoned mattress appears to breath in time with the wind,
while discarded rubbish spins like a flock of panicked birds.

Upturned shopping trolleys lie like the skeletons of long forgotten beasts
that died where they fell.
A barefoot baby searches for something at the bottom of a puddle,
only the wind combs his unruly hair.

His home, a graffiti stained block has no windows left to smash -
This neglected shell condemned to stand not fall.
He laughs at his reflection as somewhere a dog barks an angry lament.
All around, the cracks deepen and a battered door slams shut in the wind.

His mother hides from the world and watches her dreams unfold under heavy lids.
Her crooked man smokes at a table, his chest rattling like a door in its frame.
These once helpless children are now adults with no battle left to fight.

On the television a newsreader speaks about struggles in a faraway place.
The man stares at the screen with unseeing eyes.