In the cold late autumn morning
going to work people see
the Queen’s Head is dead.
The roosting pigeons have fled
and the inn keeper’s bed is on the skip.
The sound of masonry breaking lets rip
as the remorseless jack hammers skip.
Alcoves and snugs crushed into a mush,
lying broken in the red mud brick slush.
Tattered and torn the walls pulled down;
from the sign the Queen wears a frown,
resigned to her fate to be torn from her town.
Here, once games of dominoes darts and pool
and corners from which the young would drool.
Now a fire burns consuming the last bar stool.
An old man cries as he idles by
looking through a window to the sky.
Here years ago he captured his Kate.
Due to an unfortunate twist of fate
she is now of many years late.
He loved and never counted the cost,
her memory sharp like the morning frost
but with sadness now the Queen’s Head is lost.