Four London Poems

Of the many places I've lived, nowhere is poetically more inspiring than London. In my last year there, in 2000, I was living in Paul Street, E23, a perfect location for me, as I could walk to work in Farringdon and in the evenings explore the great sprawl of the East End, Hackney, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green. This is not tourist London. You don't have the palaces, parks and theatres here. But what you lose in grandeur you more than make up for in community. Real people live here and go about their daily business of making ends meet, often against the odds. There's humour here, and a thousand small stories per acre.

Usually I prefer to let poems speak for themselves, but unless I write something here, the first poem will be crushed out of shape by an intrusive advertisement, possibly for Forex Trading, whatever that means. Such is life in the commercial on-line world. So, the poems:

The first, Paul Street, E23, is a description, in blank verse, of my London apartment. I rented it unfurnished and equipped it only with a mattress, a table, a chair, a computer and a guitar. Nothing else seemed necessary, especially as I had all of London on my doorstep.

The second, Community, catches a chance encounter with one of London's unfortunates. There are many broken and damaged people in this great metropolis. I could have handled his approach better, but he wrong-footed me by appearing out of nowhere and commenting on the sandwich I was demolishing.

The third, The Commercial Tavern, E2, brings back fond memories of occasional non-working days spent walking the old streets in search of nothing deeper than contentment and gratitude to the millions of nameless ones who built this greatest of cities, brick by brick. The poem is written in Sapphics, an early Greek form named after Sappho of Lesbos.

The fourth, The Costermonger, finds a woman caught up in her own troubles until pulled back to reality by the immediacy of a street seller calling for custom. Such things happen. The poem is a rondeau, an early French form.

OK, enough introduction. With luck, we've foiled the advert!

High on the wall, a leather cap. The kind
John Lennon liked to wear, its gloss of black
catching the bare bulb glare. This room is red,
blood red. The ceiling, white. The naked floor
stretches rough pine between cracked skirting boards.
A mobile phone, kingfisher blue, proclaims
its presence with a triad, soh mi doh,
repeated twice before I cross the room
to comfort it, holding its sleek cool form,
this little speaking thing, close to an ear
that once, in 1967, heard
descending chords, the start of Strawberry Fields,
played on a mellotron, (although it might
have been a martinet for all I knew).
The moment passed, but everything had changed.
Something had come of age. Now, looking back
at Maharishis, kaftans, beads and bells,
I will not rush to join with Mark Lamaar
and others of his kind who point and sneer,
but, as the day grows old, and from the street
below there comes the sound of voices, young
men on the town, and girls in twos and threes,
I reach the leather cap down from the wall
and wander out, as if it mattered, now.

"A man like you, that likes his bread..."
I turned and waited for the rest
but nothing came. I think I said
"Sorry?", but he had done his best.
Flinching, he turned his face away instead.

Perhaps he couldn't try again,
finding some flicker of distaste
at his appearance, or disdain
hover in my unguarded face
denying both his presence and his pain.

He stood and fidgeted until,
embarrassed by his stammered sound
and by the broken silence still
resounding in his ears, he downed
his dregs and shambled out on Ludgate Hill.

All my London sweats in a haze of diesel
while I wait outside the Commercial Tavern,
wait, but not for any profound adventure,
only for evening.

Laced with comfort, time and a quart of porter,
basking through the noise of a thousand engines,
mine the grand diversion of contemplating
other men working.

Hills and books have shown me a lark ascending,
counselled me to cherish Divine creation.
These I'll gladly trade for a builder heaving
muck on a shovel.

William's early morning of inspiration*
taught him how the city in sleep is lovely.
Still, he might have waited until the business
really got started.

Drinking beer and sunlight in equal measure,
pleased to watch the scaffolders ply their mission -
not to let one glorious breast or buttock
pass by unwhistled.

* referring to 'Upon Westminster Bridge', by William Wordswoth

Only the call of a costermonger
turned her around in the lonely street
from the press of gloom she feared to meet.
Words he'd said and the look he'd flung her
ended the joy of the times he'd rung her
saying she made his life complete.
Only the call of a costermonger
turned her around. In the lonely street,
something of pain, of pride, of hunger
made of his voice a wand to beat
out of her mind all thoughts of defeat,
leaving her lighter, strangely younger.
Only the call of a costermonger
turned her around in the lonely street.