Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
Like Skywalker the force is deep in Balsall Heath
Torrents of thoughts unique fall like Autumn leaves
Feed the soul supplant the holes in the whole
Steep the heaths peeps in a shoreless floral peace
Some say after good days first they play
And then – and only then they lay to sleep on astral beams
And that some dream of glorious auroral themes
Many vaunted schemes of Balsall's luminaries
Morphed and preened by mawkish teams
Of careering career politickis; the self styled Elite
Into policies as ambiguous as one of Morpheus's dreams
Meager morsels of morphine for communities ravaged by austerity
With temerity and tenacity the heaths inhabitants
Transcend the banality of these patently patronizing fallacies
Rouse their innate virtue verve Zirconic-zeal & cobaltcreativity
Adeptly think on their feet with the dexterity and grace of Zorba the Greek
Rejuvenate the jaundiced mortal sheath
That cyclically haunts and seeks us bought to our knees
By I not we philosophies and initiatives
Viciously viscous bitumen instilling recidivism
Nibbling at the very fabric of Balsall's tapestry
Prompting tempestuous mavericks who treat such despotic deviousness
With the lightness of a Waldorf salad
To challenge the talisman of established practices
Reimagining growth absent of environmental damage
Fertile forward facing frankness absent of anguish
Mediation rather than malice altruism not avarice
Neither chained by nor afraid of the omnipresence of change
For the chains change yet something intangible yet substantial remains
And yes the words with which I express what I observe
Are peppered with romanticized hyperbole yet my purpose
Is to celebrate the Heaths intuition & ingenuity
Her eternally palpitating purple perdurability
For I know this is something Heathonians
Will never do due to their implicit humility
Look at how Dr Atkinson and Anita Halliday in the 70’s
Nurtured the birth of critical thinking for Balsall’s burgeoning progeny
Creating through play in playgrounds that give the youth a say
And were swiftly mimicked across the UK
And when one is upset or want to lash out
Don't abandon; find him or her a space that suits their way
Engendering the essences of our shared
Opulent cosmology ardently humbly locally
Puncturing the presence of the parochial
Proffering pleasure and practicality
As a magical marriage of the matter and the imaginative
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