The Deeside Way
Formally the Deeside Railway
A Victorian example of local infrastructure
Terminating in one of Britain’s best parks
Now a foot path
A beautiful example of modern reinvention
But one can’t help morn the days of hyper local public transportation
And what could have been
But then what of my childhood?
When it was just a sandy path with missing bridges
Accessible from my back garden
But to me…
A battlefield in central Europe During World War II
A battlefield on some intergalactic alien scape date unknown
A battlefield for the petty rivalries of childhood gangs of middleclass boys
With bushes that became tanks, spaceships, and hiding places
And on the odd occasion, the location of the holy grail:
The dumped porno collection exiled from some teenager’s bedroom before they left home
The collection they did not want Mum to find but couldn’t take with them
In an age before porn was infinite and in everyone’s pocket
This place where I now walk my dog and admire the infrastructure upgrades
Along with the patios and extensions on semidetached back gardens
Where I recognize the different generations of house building
In a landscape familiar, yet moved and molded by 40 years of absence
The every square inch that was once space or wasteland
Now features a house unless expressly protected
And even then, one wonders how long that can last
Like the long-gone corner shops
The British penchant for home and castle
This refuge throughfare
With the detritus of storms lining the path
Broken trees yearning for chainsaws
Storms that I have either forgotten
Or not experienced in this climate of change
And the ever-grinding punishment of Scottish weather
A tamed wilderness
That the city uses for dog walks, cycle rides, and running
(although those people are fucking crazy)
Where I take a perverse pleasure in not carrying a cell phone
In this semi-retirement exile
This was where my friends and I were gamers before gaming
Pushing the limits and boundaries of our world
Looking for easter egg secrets
The walls to scramble over
Hidden paths to weave through the adult world
An open world sandbox to take us far away from here
This place that looked nothing like the places on TV
As real as our affected American accents, enacted heroics, and plastic guns
Now this is home again
And I value it for what it is
Not what if could be in my mind
Like I value the trappings of an age gone
Like a just missed train leaving the station
Word Outlet 