Curborough Khan

In Friarsgate did Doug Pullen
A stately cinema decree:
Where Annie, the 80s movie, ran
In theatres measureless to man
Amongst a popcorn sea.
So twice 3 shops of retail ground
And multi-storey car park torn down;
And there was meanwhile-use with tenuous thrills,
Where blossomed an income-generating fee;
And here, blue hoardings ancient as the hills,
Enclosing no spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic scheme which slanted
Down the planning board athwart a concrete cover!
A desolate place! as hollow and decanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By developer in love with profit's lover!
And from this scheme, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty promise momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments of forgotten shops were flung,
Like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever