Dead and Dying 

Houses

Once warm and alive.

Now stark reminders,

standing alone

cold lifeless, devoid of movement, devoid of inhabitants.

Bastions of resistance until deemed faulty by insurance geeks 

and council epitaph writers.

Taken apart by methodical destroyers

and reckless implements , swinging and gouging, 

Crushing and smashing years of dedicated love and attention,

Years of love and living,

Love and giving.

These homes dismantled by category,

Marked by faceless visitors with indelible roughly painted squares and numbers,

emblazoned on obvious walls 

like fingering naughty community dwellers.

We have your number

You're  not welcome here anymore.

The mark is stark.

Houses dismembered room by room and buried along with their secrets and history,

Carted to places unknown ,swallowed into cold holes lined with plastic

Covered forever.

Residents disappeared in to the rush of suburbia,

Lost in little boxes, lost their  pride, lost their dignity.

Lost their existence to the system.

Absorbed so they can't be seen or heard.

Witnesses gone.