You join the dots

There were Arabs
Oiling the desert
Like clumps of dandruff
Against the pail
Till smoke cleared like tolling bells
Piercing the villages
To a man

English towns with ivy crowns
And redbrickwork
Wending lanes
Atherosclerosis
It's a wonder anybody moves
Horns coagulating softly
Beneath the muffled thump
Of a helicopter pushing the earth away