Deptford High Street 2017

Uppity people moving in
On areas formerly humble
Can't stand the arrogance,
Well, can you?
Rudimentary flavours are in...
Out, in, out,
We stop in the street and shout
"What's this all about!"
Are they taking over
A 'new breed' you say.
They had a DOG UNIT!
In Deptford, in front of the new Market Yard
Guarding a Craft Fair! Twice,
To keep the locals at bay.

Wearing those badass jeans
Jennifer supping tea
"It's not the South of
Bloody France you know"..


Standing by the fruit stall
"Antny!"
Gripped for a kiss,
Sisters , melons and babies,
Mangoes and nieces;
Next to the Latte Cafe/Van
The intellectuals
"The English are educated
Beyond their intelligence",
Said the examiner.
He looks like Alexis Sayle;
No chance of Baccalauriat now...


Here's Miss Thang!
What's she wearing today
She looks like she swam through a jumble sale
And a tiny plastic policeman's
helmit, lopsided on her...
Now...a blond wig on a Nigerian queen.
"I don't smoke but
I have cigarettes to offer
'Man' " She confides.
There she goes, arse
bare but for fishnets;
Done thinking it's unfair,
And dressed like a rubbish tip!


Eastern European bouncers guarding the entrance to a postage stamp
Why they bother to guard those who
don't want them; I don't know.
A new micro-bar
Micro-Cinema
Micro-Carrot cake
Cake, carrot-cake, cake
"Can I have one".
(need a microscope to see it)
How much! No thank you so
Very much.
That girl at Hilly Field's Farmers market
Was furious when she bought that artichoke;
To well-bred to say; 'and the cupboard was bare'
It's probably still on her mantelpiece now.


"Pattie, dumplin,
One festval and one carrot...
juice, large".
"You wan saace pon yer jerk chicken?"
"Me no wan fe cyarry me belly outa ere".
(Laughter)


Busy, busy, busy
"Some people have
things to do." Says
Earl, salon owner
and purveyor of Tweed
"Nice day to hang out
On the street".
"They're are not hanging out,
They are loitering"
Earl says towards the
gang of fellow
West Indians outside the
Betting Shop
"Hanging out!"
"Loitering!"
"Hanging out!"
"Loitering!"
"Sunning themselves!"
"Loitering!".


"It's the English buy
my stuff".
A fish-wife of a salesman
Of junk
Loud Essex and racist
Day after Brexit he put up a sign
To market entrance:
PASSPORTS PLEASE!
Insulting given the mixed demographic
Around him.
Like that other guy and his son,
Homophobic comments
Got them all together one day.
"How much is this picturebook
On Central Asia?"
Pot-bellied
In a Union Jack waistcoat,
They look at the turbaned
Man on the frontispiece
"Careful he doesn't
Blow you up!" he shouts
Out loud like a Betting Shop King
"It's funny how those
No better than landfill
Think themselves above others".