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Who Owns the High Street

Peter Bearder | 07.09.2005 09:58 | Culture | Oxford

A poem about every British highstreet, inspired by Oxford's slavery to private property and high fences...

Who owns the high street?
Who owns the park?
Who’s is this town anyway ,
Yours or ours?

Why are your fences?
Why are your locks?
How can you own something
Given by God?

Who owns these buildings,
The heritage the art?
Who owns this bus stop?
Its hurting my arse!

We don’t need a liscence
Do sing upon these streets
We don’t need permission
To find somewhere to sleep

We don’t want your shopping centre
Security guards
Controlled environments
Cant find my way out!

You can take away your chain stores
And their profits brung
You can take away Macdonalds
Poisoning our young

Give us back our misspent taxes
And give us back our air
Lets re-photosynthesize
This home this public sphere

Because the pigeons own the high street
The squirrels own the park
The beggars own the benches
We’re taking back what’s ours.

Peter Bearder
- e-mail: peter@bearder.com
- Homepage: http://www.bearder.com

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Very nice

07.09.2005 12:35

That's very nice. I liked that.

Pity it's a bit too long to make a stencil

Maybe, a stanza a stencil

anon


Could do better

09.09.2005 11:50

It's this kind of posting that reopens the question in my mind about whether poor art is justified by noble cause. We all have a right to express ourselves, and if we illuminate fundamental questions so much the better. I can't help but feel however that Peter could have made this poem more essential with a bit of time and thought. And a dictionary may have come in handy too.

Dave Todd