Indigenous indigestion – beat-bop

People are proud of their heritage
sitting on balconies with their windie boxes
wondering if the structure they are sitting on
is secure enough to take their weight
the high-rise boxes they now live in
are no better than the tenements
they were moved from in 1968
when everyone had thought they were great
but now they knock them down
they have found they wasnae sound

And a few hardy bums build their homes
under flyovers and in underpasses
or in shop windies wi’ a recess
who have forgotten their heritage
or where they came from
before they arrived in the city made of concrete
whose chemical production ripped a man-size
hole in the ozone down by the Honduras
where they say it is always warm
you can dip your toes in the sea

There’s a veteran who served in Afghanistan
who hit on hard times after he came hame
and he was born in Scotland
lived in the tenements with high ceilings
and sashy windies and gloomy paper on the walls
and the mammy polished the tiled step stone
at the front door o’ their hoose
as all the people did when they were proud
of their heritage, their standing in the street
the people that they were