A Million Starlings Fly
At dusk the factory siren groans to end the shiftAnd a million starlings fly
The chimney stacks belch grime with gusto
Across the orange sky
Harsh and hopeful
Dark and distant
A workers life consumed
This post war age of lurking smog
Half-starved dogs
And outside bogs
Foggy starts
Hand painted carts
Coal filled hessian sacks
Wooden vegetable racks
A generation maps
With industrial effort, the shuddering, juddering
Rickity, clickity
Machines pouring forth
Products of a vermilion future age
Constipated with expectation; to rebuild a nation
Not yet free, but soon will be
Before ‘the fab four’
Whose anthem will call
'She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah'
And I remember all of this
Across the orange sky
But most of all I remember
That a million starlings fly
Note: these are memories of growing up in 1960’s Birmingham.
