Feel the Buzz (Cardiff Edition)

“Its a great place to be young,”

He waves his arm; there is construction everywhere,
buildings practically popping out of the ground like
multiple erections or moles granted courage.

The world’s oldest record store in Europe’s youngest
capital. A series of posters for gigs I’d never miss in
my own city.

Whenever I’ve got a Cardiff trip planned, I prepare
an excuse to wield against my Swansea friends’
how-could-you stares—The Other Woman, the Greener Grass, the
place their old best friend never calls from.

“you should really consider moving here. There’s a
scene you could plug into. Gigs every night.”

A Los Campesinos flyer finds itself involuntarily into
my pocket. I shuffle in and out the honeycomb of
arcades, buzzed off coffee.

But the buzz doesn’t last, out the other side is the
monstrous descent of mall-progress, named after
a saint, no-less, glass and metal rippling shower
curtain luminescence,

Looming hideous over the few places I’ve come to know,
a City so desperate to assert itself as such it swallows and
is swallowed by the things that kill it,

You could really plug in here, feel the electricity
like a lightbulb, in a row of lightbulbs, flickering
and waiting for the bin.

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okay, it needs work. but now I've got the Bellingham Edition, Cardiff Edition and Swansea Edition. The skeleton of my chapbook is complete and waiting to be filled in.