Chimney pots are a species in decline:
made redundant by smokeless fuel,
Clean Air Acts, and central heating.
Under a Seig Heil of TV aerials
flue stains streak the rendering.
No-one’s taken down a peg it seems -
they’re left arrayed on lines,
though the washing’s long been carried in.
From shadow into sodium glare,
I pace these terraces through twilight,
to suck the balmy air:
it’s T-shirt time on easy street.
Open pub doors exhale their beery breath
onto the pavement;
where bored teens squat the chippy steps -
throwaway cheek, thrown away wrappers.
Detect the gasometer’s rise and fall:
beneath its lattice crown,
sporadic painted names
still grace the glass of fanlit halls.
From built-in bootscrapers of the porchless,
to single bays and double fronts -
accretion here preserved
in brick and mortar memory.
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