Dear Brum Revisited
Unfortunately, I’m here, revisiting you again –
You can change what you do, but not what you want.
You’re the unpaid claim, the rotting street,
The Oracle glitch that deadened receipts.
It’s Birmingham City where the heart’s gone cold,
A council so broke it cannot be sold.
You have to breathe in the rot to understand,
The mountains of trash and huge rats back.
The ‘22 Games lit fireworks bright,
Then Oracle erased the sums at night.
No audit trails, just silence then alarm,
The city now begging on its palms.
I’m not a betting man, but I’ll say this clear:
A public inquiry makes executives fear.
It wasn’t always like this – recall the pride,
Before they hid the books and lied.
No river’s strong enough to wash this stain,
Social services ravaged and budgets slashed again.
760 million to settle women’s equal pay,
Yet, council tax rises they expect us to pay?
We’ve had our dark Fridays, Black Sabbath dawned.
Now rats rule, the Squeaky Blinders curse.
Chamberlain’s clock still chimes through the square,
There’s a public health crisis. Does anybody care?
Hitherto has been toxic, with the heat and the flies,
The glass towers gleam, but the pavements rise.
And when I smell the stench my whole-body retches –
Retches. Jesus Brum, I’m retching…
The QE’s wards can’t cure this plague.
Whistleblowers erased without trace.
But if I’m the Council corrupt at the core,
You’re still the people, strong but bruised.
Proud how you’ve been calm in a trashy situation,
Loud about our council’s ineptitude and extortion,
Clouds piss down rain and the stench gets worse,
Brum built metal but how much more can we take?
I am the glitch stuck in the council’s spine,
The “out-of-the-box” dream that engendered decline.
I am the strike line, the equal pay gap.
The “third world” according to TalkTV crap.
The art’s still here—graffiti screams “Ctrl+Z.”
The system is broken. No undo. Just fees.
Respect officials? How? When the code’s all wrong?
Dynamite lighting like a Lady Leshurr song.
Games being played. No gold awards but sacks.
Be told Birmingham. Stand tall.
Life is tough, but so are we.
Further Reading: Angry residents complain of rats and rubbish stench in Birmingham bin strike
Your visceral ode to Birmingham cuts deep—’mountains of trash and huge rats’ juxtaposed with Chamberlain’s enduring chimes paints a haunting duality of decay and resilience. The ‘Ctrl+Z’ graffiti especially nails the craving for systemic undo buttons we’ll never get.
In a city where transparency feels glitched. Keep roaring, Brum. The art in your grit is the kind no council can bankrupt.