Malcolm Lowry was right. on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
His “Lament of the Pacific Northwest” is as astute an observation about Vancouver today as it was when he wrote it in 1949.
This poem was written about the very bandstand pictured here which, in over 20 years of living downtown, I have yet to see a band perform.
They are taking down the beautiful houses once built with loving hands
But still the old bandstand stands where no band stands
With clawbars they have gone to work on the poor lovely houses above the sands
At their callous work of eviction that no human law countermands
Calously at their work of hearbreak that no civic heart understands
In this pompous and joyless city of police moral perfection and one man stands
Where you are brutally thrown out of beer parlors for standing where no man stands
Where the pigeons roam free and the police listen to each pigeon’s demands
And they are taking down the beautiful homes once with loving hands
But still the old bandstand stands where no band stands.
