stevedorequinlan

you’ll never see a beggar in the Trafford Centre

you’ll never see a pigeon pecking on vomit

you’re guaranteed the weather in the Trafford Centre

Cos Its safe and secure and that’s just how we want it

.

But I see, The Stepford lives of Stretford lads

with overbearing Stretford Dads

the boy’s too scared he can’t get on the bus

He thinks every brown face is potentially felonious

the paranoid face of middle aged bores

in ostentatious four by fours

despatched through glass revolving doors

those posing perry-clad Bieber spoors

Close knit jeans in bootcut jeans

weeping streams of spotty teens

queue for multiplex cinema screens

They all go Nandos, they’re all dressed to kill

They all want someone to “Netflix and chill”

.

Oh you’ll never see a beggar in the Trafford Centre

you’ll never get harangued by an alcoholic

you’ll never get to heaven in the Trafford centre

cos its safe and secure…. apart from that plot to bomb it

.

I see, The perennially sedentary the nu-Audi landed gentry

park their cars across all across all disabled entries

watched by acquiescent marble Roman sentries

To prevent the elements from getting to their generic gelled shit hairdo

with gilet bearing arms with the same old shit tattoos

with that same old trophy wife and that same old trophy shitszu with the attitude 

Let’s be honest if bad taste had a statue it would look a bit like you

As you waddle through John Lewis you eschew a sense of style

you are tempted in by sports direct’s shell suits are fuckin vile

you will both buy matching superdry and matching fur lined Uggs

then you’ll take a break in starbucks like two flat white matching mugs

.

Oh you’ll never see a beggar in the Trafford Centre

you’ll never get the homeless camping upon it

you’ll never buy the spice within the Trafford Centre 

cos its out of our sight and that’s just how we want it

.

I see, The massive singing Christmas tree

the joy that it espouses

like those sentimental Christmas ads

just after judges houses

we see trees of green and – john lewis too

we buy conscious salving shopping for that – man in the moon

would we sell our aged relatives to to buy the latest i-pad?

and then wrap them up some biscuits with a tersely written “DAD”

and I think to myself – what the fuck have we become?

We are slaves to simon cowell

we are comfortably numb