The Pace of Life (2010)

 

Where  predatory consumers

Live for shopping seven days a week

Spend-spend-spending

Until the plastic runs out

Union Street ,manners have gone from you

As folk fly past, flying fast

Mobile handed, chatting to thin air,

Chatting without a care who’s listening

Designer labeled, faded out kids

Be –denimed revenants from style forgotten decades

Retro-nuevo , Old disguised as New.

 

“ In my day , kids opened doors for an auld wifie”

“I mind fan pop music wis tuneful , nae jist a racket!”

 

Not now, nobody’s bothered, these days,

Too busy being busy

To worry ‘bout being worried

No time for knowing what time it is

Union Street , I ‘ve walked your length for many years

Seen many changes, wear and tear

Shops and cinemas all have gone

What have the city fathers done?

 

Closed down shops for sale or lease

Short terms cheap shops selling cheese

Piss reeking doorways

Puke patterned doorways

You split into four ways

At Union Terrace, where

Burns and Wallace

Stand iconic ,

pointing separate ways.

 

“ Fit wye tae Hivven , mate?”

“ I dinna ken!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

( This is the poem I am updating with 'The Pace of Life' -2020, this was written in 2010, and describes the main street of Aberdeen at that time, it could really be the scene in any major city of the time)