Not Slough

It's become unholier than Slough

Far worse than Betjeman would allow

Though bad for him, its much worse now

It's Croydon

The choking little concrete slum

You search for life, your mind goes numb

You return home empty, feeling glum

Not caring

You feel hemmed in by road and brick

Avoiding morning pools of sick,

Dogshit, litter, you take your pick

Despairing

Its windows reflect broken dreams

And tiny minded tinpot schemes

That forgot the people so it seems

In their plan

The faceless men with gaudy ties

Who live their little corporate lies

To avoid the poor they shut their eyes

To a man

With tattoed arms and beer gut curse

Others shout their gutter verse

You think they're bad, the kids are worse.

They're hopeless

And in the warehouse shops, the wives

Buy tat to fill their boring lives

They gossip on like bags of knives

And say less

Along the dreadful Purley way

There's not the gates to save the day

No God to take your sins away

Just junctions.

Its as friendly as a concrete cow

If I had to live there now.

I'd wonder why, I'd wonder how

It functions.

Going there should be a crime

And though I have spent there quite sometime

I've found no reason or a rhyme

For Croydon