Tag Archives: City

About One in Two Hundred Thousands

Late evening, I walk past the guildhall
pride of place epitomised in stone
Victoria's solid figure set glum-faced
stares unseeing across the city square
Did imperial majesty not make you happy, ma'am?

Ahead a space, where a big block stood
reduced to its foundations with civic care
floor-by-floor removed 
kitchens, bathrooms, lounges
down-to-earth homes now grounded

This rebuilt city shifts again
from its 1940s shattered remains
to quick-fix accommodation
to divided houses with doorbells arrayed
too many people in too little space

Concrete defences fight off the rapacious sea
While two hundred thousand people relax
By turning up the television volume
To hide a woman's screams
On screen that's entertainment
as for her, reality bites

I hesitate and turn
Which street? Which low-rise?
I cannot locate the source of pain
Someone surely must be closer
Police already called to intervene

I walk on clinging to my timely rediscovered belief
in love-thy-neighbour
myths of Blitz-spirit community
the local friendly British Bobby
under mocking seagull cries

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Twelve prompt; something small. Here the possible odds of somebody doing the right thing in time.

CLP 12/04/2022

on light

street, car, lamp, moon, star
fox turns grey, trots down alley
barks, cuts through shadow

~

CLP 28/01/2022

on sound

ambulance passes
low moan of London express
car door clunks, footsteps

~

CLP 22/11/2021

Man-made

blocks lined-up from blue-prints
radiate back late summer heat
deny sleep

~

CLP 07/09/2021

Can I come in? It’s not safe out there

…it never has been, I thought

I read the news, have seen the stats

hear the doppler rise and fall of sirens

bouncing off the city walls insistent

on untrammelled passage

scrambling wits of locked in drivers

blocked in lanes unsure quite where

the blue lights approach from

or head toward, what they are

and who they’re for

.

May I? For a moment, until it clears.

Could it ever, I wondered after

weeks, months, years have passed?

Some still remember how it felt

to bump accidentally into friends

or brew a fight with a stranger

or catch the light in a smile

(while sharing a smoke at the cool side-door)

agreeing to something a little more intimate

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2021 Day 6 Prompt, take a line from a story as a prompt, then write the poem, then

“Actually, one of them was supposed to come today, but because of the commotion going on out there they sent me instead.” 

From Samsa in Love by Haruki Murakami first published in The New Yorker, republished in Desire Vintage Classics / Penguin Random House (London, 2017).

~

CLP 06/04/2021

NaPoWriMo

On Light

Grey screen of winter sky

Cars studded with twin diamonds

Wind whips up lost leaves

~

CLP 26/12/2020