A poem about... gentrification

Here is the first entry in a very occasional series we're calling 'Poetry Corner' (took us awhile to think of that). Below is a poem by Mancunian writer and literary-politico Danny Moran. He's also good for racing tips. Take it away Dan...

Bricks

by Danny Moran

Oh, how my heart now sings for bricks

As once I thought that steel and glass

Would make me feel like I belonged

When my tomorrows found a song.

I walk the city streets today 

And wonder at the sight of it

Those cranes that beckon in the sky

Are asking me to take a lie.

They want to sell me silver foil

But I've seen behind the shine,

Those riverside apartment blocks

All look to me like gates and locks.

They're piggy banks for those that go 

Where corporation money swills

They stand around like cheap utensils

Copied up from stupid stencils.

Bricks are honest, straight and true

They square the city with the past

And lend a building purpose, plain

Or make a pub feel right as rain.

They seemed to make the north make sense 

Tied my father to the state

Gave my mother's dreams a place

And hard communities a face.

They don't require a press release

Or make you think they're full of drugs

They don't wear cheap eye shadow's hue 

They don't wink when they look at you.

You'd think the architects and suits 

Who let the money trickle down

Would understand the reason why

Such things that work reward the eye.

And see the citadels and towers

Of foreign lands for what they are

And know it's nothing but a crime 

To pray in other peoples' shrines.

So clean the mills and factories 

And give me council houses too

And work that isn't turning tricks

Like building homes and making bricks.

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