I’m looking forward to the Birmingham Commonwealth Games opening ceremony tonight, created/organised by Steven Knight.

The following is my found homage to the city and surrounds, a poetic journey written a few years ago.

I looked in this city and found

a rub of quintessentially English
forested country
remote and marginal meaning
the grassroots of being

I looked through history and found

eavesdropping in the Domesday
Roman conquest of hope
air ever-changing
tree felling appeal

I looked at landscape and found

modern humans
the Plateau of can goods
Beormingahām beginning
primary people legacy

I looked within corners and found

Edgbaston in its AD
many burnt mounds
a celebration of free
progressive importance

I looked with its people and found

early human Britain
artefacts suggesting names
hierarchies of the established
collaboration in a blossom

I looked down side-streets and found

heavily bombed foundations
an economy dominated by people
a beautiful leading to the clearance
culinary scenes

I looked by watching and found

river valleys of the tribal
our world’s past
cultural pluralism in bloom
transition and growth of a period

I looked from day and night and found

a built-up area
capability
an influx of the stylish
digbeth dining

I looked inside books and found

the Guarded Font
Sherlock seeding roots
Highfield on its high
a Ring of Arden trees Lording

I looked through opened eyes and found

the dialect of its name
an infrastructure of planners
a sector of service
a fabric of shaken privilege

I looked for Birmingham and found

the stretching of forges and furnaces
a single bulk commodity of creativity
a wide variety of specialised
exceptional levels of the heart