Jonathan Butcher writes

Swallowed Pride

Those faces once again crawl from between

the pavements and orange brick houses and
straight through the neat lawns and new builds.
They slowly echo off each wall, but fail to melt
into one single voice.

That false superiority overshadows both
the breakfast tables and work places, their
backs straightened with hope. The days and months
spill over like broken gutters, a threshold scraped
from rotting barrels.

Their identity now polished and replaced on
toilet walls and dust filled mantle pieces.
Both rags and gold stitched together as a
vulgar patch work that now flies as their
all consuming flag.

They sit complacent, their homes which were
never stolen now stand with brittle walls, the
gardens now overgrown without the chance
of maintenance and those clouds above still
float yet refuse to break. 

 Suburbia -- Andrea Joyce Heiner