All those men with suitcases
With bags on their backs and frowns on the faces.
Are filling out forms in full up dead places
Trying to fit in and hide in the bleak empty spaces.
And what’s it all for?
To keep the wolf from the door?
No more jobs on t’shop floor
No more ladies in curlers sitting on sills
No more pit heads or mills.
No.
It’s all gone south.
No wonder Northerners are down in the mouth.
So I’m going to get on a ship and travel out East,
And feed myself into the mouth of the beast.
“Me old China”
John Smallshaw: The Pantechnicon Poet 