Round our way, the roads are paved with hatred
and no one comes to realise their dreams.
We execute the clever clogs,
deify the bigger dogs,
fashion self-esteem from ragged pants.

There is no new Jerusalem,
no land of opportunity.
The holy lamb was sanctioned
and satanic mills are silent;
we blind ourselves with arrows of desire.

The countenance divine is dull and dour.
Power is confined to this estate.
Mental fights happen at the bus stop in the rain
and every day we break a little more,
torn apart and senseless with the grief.

Round our way, the roads are paved with hatred
and no one comes to realise their dreams.
Our scabs are picked repeatedly
by fingertips of greed
and we bleed and blame
whoever's on the telly.

Last year, I was asked to write a poem about where I came from. I’d already written one a few years ago, about the 1970s council estate I grew up on. It was drenched in community spirit, the men helping each other fix their knackered cars at the weekend, the women looking out for each other’s kids, taking meals to old or widowed folk on the street and the smell of Irish stew “upon the river.” I took a good long look at where I live now and it’s so different as to be unrecognisable. I know exactly where and when that fracture began and watched it happen right in front of me. Revelations is about where I live now and gives a big nod to William Blake. It is included in my new collection, Fault Lines, published by Flapjack Press, which aims to identify the causes and effects of the divisions in our contemporary world and recognises the potency of kindness in a world intent on creating those divisions.

Poetry on the Picket Line is a squad of like-minded poets putting themselves about to read their work on picket lines, in the spirit of solidarity. Invitations to rallies etc. welcome, contact facebook.com/pg/PicketLinePoets