To Be Born Here Is To Know You Are Blessed

Manchester is embedded in my heart. Its poetry, music, and public art Artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Hangs alongside L. S. Lowry's sketchy Waterways, buildings that smell like latrines Dark brooding, inner-city landscape scenes Industrial factory workers, dogs And young teens, men and boys in boots and clogs, Smog-painted cotton mills, oily canals Red-brick chimneys turned over like sepals Are they now luxury condominiums? But the canals are still hideous. They are filled with shopping trollies and beer cans. And infected needles, a dozen rats Plus, keep watch for the bulldozer's approach. While the city expands on its encroachment, Towering cranes cover the skyline. Monolithic monuments like Saline Tubes feed the greed of an ambitious few. Little has changed; we're still back in the queue. Us match-stalk men are proud of our heritage. Our northern soul, Boddington's beverage Our poet, Dame Carol Ann Duffy It's all part of our topology. It's the way we danced at Twisted Wheel. A spinning backflip into a cartwheel The rave music of the hacienda, The acid-house gyrating dilemma Wanting never to sleep or surrender Back into that sad 9-to-5 ever-after Back to that poorly-paid Lowry sweatshop, It's in my heart, my blood, and every teardrop. Manchester's iconic Joy Division Love will tear us apart. That cynicism Is what binds us all, kid, that and The Smiths? Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now—riffs Legends like Bobby Charlton and George Best And those like Denis Law, who wore both vests Manchester is buried deep in my chest. To be born here is to know you are blessed.