It was a far cry from the wail that finished off

any love I felt for the town

that nestled between drowning rivers

and the place where the white hart died

centuries before, running out of steam

on pastured land and from where

a rotten borough took place;

gentle snoozing town,

I was out of place, despite having

the strongest of connections

in a cottage in Peter’s Finger.

 

This hamlet market town, the piper of county

thought and woe betide country way,

never step out of place,

that was the Wiltshire outlook,

set deep in the required manners

and yet one that would see the boy die

as he gasped his last,

perhaps had a nicer start,

for I first heard Axl Rose

come out

of the Juke Box on Castle Street

and for a brief moment

as the strains of the debut filled

the road side,

I found myself thinking, perhaps

this won’t be bad…

this won’t be too bad,

I can always leave

and leave I had to do

for in that appetite to find a belonging,

I could have been planted anywhere

and I would not have heard

that scream.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017