TATE BY THE TAFF

  A few years ago when the shopping precinct in Pontypridd was demolished and plans to renovate failed, local MP Owen Smith proposed that the area should become a 'Tate by the Taff'.

Owen Smith?
Local boy, of course....
well, Barry Island, close enough!

Failed in his bid
to save the Muni Arts Centre :
rumours he even volunteered
to dress up in a tutu
and do an Ed Balls
in a money-raising spectacular.

Failed in his bid
to oust Jeremy Corbyn ;
nobody really convinced
he is any more left-wing
than a line of Kinnocks.

But succeeded in his dream
to make a Tate By The Taff
in his constituency of Pontypridd.

You can view it from the bridge:
once a dilapidated precinct
but now some of the best exhibits
since those jagged rocks
and mould of a house won the Turner Prize....
not to mention the elephant shit.

Heavy irony of the Welsh Government sign,
rubbled wasteland symbolic of austerity,
the derelict remains of a shop
representing the emptiness of consumerism,
scattered litter the imagery
of the effluence of society.

The unacknowledged, unsung inspiration
for all of this, the local MP :
it should be renamed 'SMITHDOM',
a tribute to his creativity.