By Belle Mont.
Oh stunning is the vision that the CGP has shown
Of a futuristic plaza where the land that we all own
Lies waiting for the digger to tear it all asunder
It’s Mounthooly in the firmament, with parking spaces under
A theatre. A forest. Gardens by the acre.
A rowie tree with sponsorship by Aitken’s, Torry’s baker?
Trips on ships on Denburn’s tides from the former Trainie Park
On noble graceful clippers just like the Cutty Sark?
A cottage made of gingerbread? A Lagavulin fountain?
A petting zoo – with unicorns – below Malteser Mountain?
It never rains, the breeze is warm, one never needs a brolly
Thanks to Callum, Oban’s is a poorer McCaig’s Folly
A Granite Web, renowned world-wide, or is that even wider?
A web designed and realised by a maniacal spider
High-maintenance, and dear to clean, with all those nooks and crannies
Nodded through for me and you, by feart brown-nosing mannies
A monolithic Concrete Web with a permanence of gales
Shops with garish frontages proclaiming last chance sales
Litter in the flower beds, the ramps a ‘boarder’s dream
The urine of a Friday night in constant steaming stream.
Think forward two decades or more and stroll along its edges
And tell your bairns or grandchild, “Here once grew flowers and hedges
Ripped apart, the verdant heart, to leave this barren hole
A city, formerly in bloom, now a town without a soul”.