In the balmy summer of ‘67
every kid on Concrete Canyon
with hammer, nails and imagination
was on the look out of for wheels.
No stone unturned for a bit of wood,
clothes lines reduced by a likely foot
to make a makeshift killing machine.
A beast to beat the need for speed
from the heated depths of childish dreams,
let loose from the top of the ‘big hill’
to trundle, freefalling into memory.
Beating a rhythm, a concrete slab symphony
of speeding childhood innocent idiocy
with no brakes and dodgy steering.
Wide eyed careless bravery
whooping up a slipstream
and flying off the pavement.
Achieving zero gravity
and crashing in a hedge.
Then, armed with grazed proficiency
and senseless knocked camaraderie,
grimy grins passed face to face
would end the passé trolley race
and tie them all together
to make a trolley train.
And with the bravest first in line
in summer shorts and old t-shirts,
thoughtless of bare arms and legs,
they’d trundle back atop the hill
to fly back down again.