Not My Home

NOT MY HOME

Glasgow never had been my home!
  My home
was elsewhere;
but I did admit to living
  there.

There were times when I would almost
have called the city
  mine,
but I was constantly reminded
that I was a foreigner
  in that city.

There was a lack of communication
  which lay
not in speech,
  nor even
   nationality!

It lay perhaps
 in the dust of the streets;
 in the halves and half-pints;
 in the pseudo-religious cult of football;
 in the crumbling tenements:
it lay ingrained
 in the superficial.

Deep in the hearts of the city people
  there was perhaps
  no difference
between they
 and I.

Glasgow was not my home,
but I did admit to living there.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Glasgow, 1st August 1967

Publications

1970 MOUSINGS (Sheffield, Headland)
1990 The Plastic Tower (USA)