'By Way of Kensal Green'

Not a very English road,
it wandered just the same.
Benghazi born, a runt in Rutland:
from whited sand to fond rusticity.

Moenchengladbach in time;
houses stood in military lines.
Square-pegged grammar schoolboy;
long haul-idays in the Lion City.

Then a northern, grimy town,
steelworks workers stealing
others’ pension books and giros
for reasons of necessity.

A very British haircut -
to go with gratis clothes.
Berlin bound, a spy for a season -
‘til freedom's trumpet felled the walled city.

Heat and dust and djellabahs
Ramadhan and halal feasting
after sundown-ers, five-star boredom
in alien sunlight without pity.

Home at last from those hills,
here goats and horses fill the roads
in somnolent queues.
At last some quiet domesticity.

With apologies to the memory of GK Chesterton