Charlie Cake Park

Like an identification parade
Feel like death while the children grow
A young grey face in the shade of the Armley P.O.
Pushing prams or walking sticks
Getting the money from under glass
clothes don't fit too well
Down in Charlie Cake park
You can hardly walk on your heels
stagger out blind between the bikes and cars
Frozen in the headlights glare down on Suicide Road
Walking under ladders for a living
You know we should be running round the pubs and bars
We know we'll never go short
And we'll never grow tall
In a flat above the chemists
Andy and Claire are dressing to kill
But they don't come out till after dark
In Charlie Cake park
You can't avoid the broken glass -
When you're ground and weathered like a stone
leaving footprints in the mud like the words on a grave
So unlikely so mundane
Scatter breadcrumbs in the rain
With a paper bag for a mask
In Charlie Cake park
as the chronic illness brews
We know we should feel a fraud
But the whole place never moves
And nothing will change