Hay Hill – South Audley
Street & Pall Mall – & a
few others like Bond St
[& Haymarket] – there a
sped mastery of routes
in vans & cars & cabs &
trucks – west out fastest
past Talgarth Road’s art
studios/ We drove – as if
our short lives no longer
mattered to us – Gatso’s
box of camera tricks not
yet set to capture us [not
then]/ I did Nelson’s – &
then up Pall Mall – a slid
right [past royal gardens]
as princes spied – envious
of our driven days/ Those
Sundays through London
were quicker last century
Tag: london
London Sweats
A fan-cooled idle chauffeur
slumps
in his employer’s slick black
double-parked Mercedes
with its engine left running
for working comfort
as it stokes London’s
smoke-free zone
Kensington High Street
puddles
with our fat drops of sweat
See my old man’s back of death-damp –
patches of sweated whisky and beer?
They push me to seek
short-lived shelter
alongside a hundred others
of every nation
in air-conditioned shops
with wide open doors
We all become refugees
with changes in weather
Serpentine Paths
Today wary Canadian geese
avoid paddling screams
from lido-blue rowing boats
finding cooler shade ashore
and rich landed pickings
among flat pressed patches
of lawns below London planes
where an hour’s respite
was snatched
by shade-hungry office bodies
A flaked Royal Parks bench
holds a mother and her boys –
silent with ice cream smiles
Here we share recovery positions
as both boys bum-shuffle
to their right – making an old man’s
space
I see what I will again see later –
strangers’ glances at unknowns
Now at her clothes – her veil
I built this park – in my working days
I planted most of her trees
and laid clean sand for her gallops
I should be able to name
more than London planes
as my known path takes me
to David in Fitzrovia
By Green Park
Day-glo tourists and hoary men –
stiff in their dour ashen suits –
not much has changed
beyond Victoria’s cast arches –
still a Queen and commoners
standoff and watch each other
from behind quick net curtains
and wrought iron barriers
as black cabs and red buses
match those travellers’ hopes
of a London of old curiosities –
with a high price tag to boot
Grenadiers play at army games
but all I see is Spike’s Neddy –
unlike Freddy – parading in heat
under a bear weight of headgear
to guard sweet sperm of kings
in their capital residencies –
where penguin-suited servants
respond to royal commands
whilst we all grovel like a Goon
under that ongoing burden
of keeping up appearances
in our less sumptuous palaces
And my return journey home
through ticket-licking turnstiles –
out beyond a thousand kisses –
is to where Sussex wears green
quite well
Henley Homes in Lambeth
It has now come to pass
children are set aside
before profitable hedges
to maintain London prices
over fixed social housing –
though their adverts stated –
common areas are there
for the use of all.. residents
This split capital sets
poor doors as markers
to keep rare palaces high
and beyond the reach
of most average born kids