A Poetical Debate in Three Voices

ON THE PROPOSED WIDENING OF THE M6 MOTORWAY

30-07-2007

A chance meeting with GAME - the Group Against Motorway Expansion - has got The Stirrer's poet laureate Brendan Hawthorne all fired up this week. They've got him angry about the proposed expansion of the M6 through beautiful Staffordshire countryside to four lanes.

Hardcore

Phase One: In The Beginning

They're thinking about

rolling out

another tarmac carpet

along the Midland to North West

transport corridor

So tell me what for?

Is it so that foreign rigs

and 4x4’s

can travel in comfort

when going in

four by four?

Tell me is that what it’s for?

Thirty-odd thousand

for each and every yard

of tax payers’ money

quarried out roadstone

aggregate and hard-core

That’s what it’s for

A three billion pound

expansion scheme

in the name of progress

for floodwater to lose acres

of ingress

Ah, that what it’s for

For nature to be repelled

even further back

have only hard shoulders

to cry on at night when

placing tar above track

Now I know what it’s for!

We’ve all seen roads

fill up to capacity

It’s the nature of this beast

unleashed without check

fuelled on diesel tenacity

I can see what it’s for!

Preservations and reservations

become coned off diversions

as the global warming accelerator

is pushed to the boards

over ice cap indicators

That’s what it’s for!

A thin end of another wedge

turns our green to grey

an unpleasant land

of freeways, expressways

and runway gateways

That’s all it’s for

This ‘practical’ relief

is but puerile fallacy

and yet more proof

of a failing

transport policy

A plaster for an open sore

Phase Two: Reason

Let’s be imaginative!

Let’s heed the call

before it’s too late

and another tree falls

Listen to conscience

Let’s sit and talk

We’re trying to run

before we can walk

Before nature and clean air

are left only in name

we have to unite

or carry the shame

that this generation

could have said no

to this urban vandalism

and political travelling show

Expansion. Progress

It all reads the same

but let’s meet up with reason

and listen to GAME

Phase Three: Long Term Investment

Will future generations

berate us for our footprint?

Will they ask us why

we ignored them

the first of the unborn?

Or will future generations

thank us for our consideration

when handing over

the foundations of a morally

respectful nation?

We need to think

Have more to give and less to take

before we sink

beneath the weight

of yet another road widening mistake