Close to Stourbridge, with a school, a park,
Friends and a dentist, and the bonds of blood.
Given a clean slate, not marred for a lark,
Tony packs a punch with his sense of 'I am!'
And 'I've a tale to tell!' and 'I'm from Birmingham!'
What appearances he saves by omitting the surname
Are banal, for he writes like one who knows
Where he belongs. Clueless, we frame
A C.V. identity for ourselves that flows
With the commodity stream, an open-grave brochure -
Unglossed by sentiment, the good and bad times
That shape us - the bare bones of a developing structure
In words just as stiff and fetid! It begrimes
Life histories, gesturing obeisance to others,
To clean up the references that make us brothers.
How much are we what our parents approved,
How much what we feel and dream? So unfulfilled
Was my conventional life by their name it behooved
Me to answer to, that I latinized it, my dreams to build.
Renamed, am I anything by virtue of place?
A little grubby-kneed from my boyhood den.
Am I anything by virtue of running in the rat-race?
Still rooted to the starting line by idealism's ken
From ten seasons old. Am I anything by breeding?
None the worse for wear, or better at heeding.
Am I anything orthodoxly? A wandering planet
Or free-floating craft to a star, not reached.
The hallmarks of identity aren't carved in granite: