thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Martin Hayes
where cranes now stand
where we once played round robin 5-a-side football competitions
that were our world cups
pulling on Argentina or Holland tops
and shorts that just about kept in our balls
where we once spent countless hours trying to impress groups of girls
with our clothes haircuts trainers smiles
the position in our pack of boys
working our way up
so that we actually got to kiss our first girlfriends
in an alcove while pretending to play a game of chess
where we drunk our first can of beer
smoked our first cigarette
tied our first ribbon after running our hands through a girls' hair
where we once picked up books
and spoke about the great things we were going to achieve
cranes now stand
cranes who've had their feet bolted into our earth
who will lift everything needed
to make another block of luxury flats
that spread out far and wide
or at least until the horizon
cranes now stand
gleaming under the sun
their lights threading the night sky
like the red eyes of a sky monster
readying this block of flats on our land
for people to come
people who haven't ever lifted a finger
to make one single thing
with their hands
who board jets to fly halfway around the globe
to sit on beaches sipping at drinks
whenever life gets too much for them
this land
where our old youth club used to stand
where knowledge was accumulated instead of bought
where we felt our first kisses turn our insides into molten heat butterflying our guts
where we learnt how to grow up
placed our feet on that road towards becoming men and women
cranes now stand
building a complex that will hang signs around its perimeter walls
Martin Hayes was born in Paddington, London, in 1966 and has lived in the Edgware Rd/Marylebone area all of his life. He attended Quintin Kynaston Comprehensive School in Swiss Cottage but left at the age of 15 to go out and work as circumstances didn’t allow him to continue his education. He has worked in the London courier industry since he was 16 - first as a leaflet distributor and then as an accounts clerk, a telephonist, a cycle courier, a controller’s assistant, a controller and a control room manager. Poetry collections: Letting Loose The Hounds (Redbeck Press, 2007), When We Were Almost Like Men (Smokestack Books, 2015), The Things Our Hands Once Stood For (Culture Matters, 2018), Roar! (Smokestack, 2018), Ox (Knives Forks & Spoons Press, 2021) and Underneath (Smokestack, 2021).
"Private Property - No Loitering!"
"NO BALL GAMES - £50 FINE!"
where the young
will not be welcome
have to stand around on street corners outside kebab shops in stairwells steal
night hours here and there
in flats where parents have had to go off to work
the young
who soon won't have any youth clubs left anymore
to play football in
to learn how to tie ribbons in a girl’s hair in
use the cover of a game of chess to learn how to kiss in
place their feet on that road
where cranes now stand
blocking their way forwards
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles