The world is a beautiful place

The world is a beautiful place

The world stands up in grace

The world shags backwards

All the faces of disgrace

And all the flowers of the city

Are so pretty in their place

The fogs are lifting

Like liquorice canals

Flowing like the pony-tails

Of men in white vans

Shagging like grey suits

Of the pick-up brigade the

Flat caps that never stayed

The he never came back

Leather jacket shade

Of black

The plasterers with grizzly jaws

And fags hanging out of their mouths

The motorcycling husband and wife

With their kid in the sack

The hoodies

The workmen, the chinned hardmen

Who walk like cockerels with their

Shoulders pushed back

Jutting their jaws like the titanic

Ice breakers

Ready for an attack

The music lovers with their head-phones in dancing

To their own tune

And then the girls with their blue dyed hair

Strands cut like records

The baseball caps in reverse

The noble ruck sack wearing youths

The couples in earnest pursuit of life

And love and meaning

And the wind in the red curly locks

Of a young man who faces his life alone

The survivors

The strivers and the thrivers

Rubbing shoulders in the same street

The world is a wonderful place

I believe

In the smile

Of chubby cherubs

The dirty grey brown hair

Of old mother hubbards

Who peck the ground

For their meal

The world is a beautiful place

I still feel