REGENERATION

my ears bleed
assaulted by facts
procedures
tips
arguments
recommendations
dismissals
suppositions
insights
warnings
claims
and counter-claims
i am a timid child
unsure of myself
among these confident grown-ups
impressive knowers
confident talkers
amazing seers and doers
brash actors in the big world out there
achieving things that i never dreamt of
while all the time
i was playing with my toys...
today i see the city i grew up in through new eyes
a living testament to the art of place-making
our tour starts to the east
where the redbrick victoriana of the co-operative bakery
stands in ruins among piles of rubble
shrunken in scale
we struggle across a giant windblown plaza
that fronts the enormous shed of the think tank
on a quite different scale
rosie's place is boarded up
victim of a compulsory purchase order
in the name of inner-city regeneration
on up the hill
moor street station has been beautifully restored
to its edwardian pomp
except that only two of its six platforms are functional
we slide around the shiny blue flank of selfridges
up into bull ring limited
where security will move you on
if you dare to aspire to anything other than shopping
the cars have been banished from new street these days
allowing pedestrians to crane their necks above the shopfronts
to the victorian grandeur of the city buildings
counterbalanced by the post-modern foolery
of the floozy in the jacuzzi at the end of the street
across chamberlain square is the city library
where prince charles thought books should be incinerated
rather than read
mothers with prams no longer have to tunnel
to cross paradise circus
instead a bridge funnels us into centenary square
and on to brindley place and the restored canal
brummagem still has a terrible press
a terrible accent
and terrible transport hubs
but the rough
comes with the smooth