Return to Cardiff

'Hometown'; well, most admit an affection for a city:
grey, tangled streets I cycled on to school, my first cigarette
in the back lane, and, fool, my first botched love affair.
First everything. Faded torments; self-indulgent pity.

 

This poem shows how Cardiff holds so many memories for Abse and his first experiences whether good or bad. However now he feels like an outsider as his return seemed like a "raid on mislaid identities" As he moves around the city he finds certain memories such as seeing his grandfather, all the memories shape how he liked the town but now everything has changed as "for what I wanted it to be" for Abse now is just a "city of strangers" and his connection with the city has gone.

Even the places and illusory is different the only thing that holds true memories are "the smell of ripe,  damp earth"

 

The "other Cardiff", the one he had a connection with and remembers has gone and "the boy I was not and the man I am not met" this links to childhood memories and growing up as the boy he was when he was young disappeared with the old memories and the man who he would of become if he had stayed never existed- therefore never met, so he "walked on" and carried on his life he lives now.
This poem could link to Larkin's 'Here' as though that poem has a third persona it still describes a certain place which holds some memory.