Faces Land, North Ellen Street, Dundee

Faces Land, North Ellen Street, Dundee

Here in Visage Land

all the gargoyles, spouts, grotesques

have flown from their buttresses

in a rooftop flit

leaving the haunt of ecclesiastics

to down-size in old age

closer to the shops.

Bereft of holy observances,

they stare uneasily

from this tenement block.

It will take time before

they find their feet

in a place as new as this.

Neil Leadbeater