London p. 9

London pt. 9

Yesterday you were collected from this city;

   All constitutive and material bearings retrieved

By Lindsey, for storage aloft, and lost, from sight,

   But from mind never far removed; alike to London,

Always embroidered as stitched insignia in our skins, always

   A beginning, to limn our manuscript future together,

Bearing more than we can lose, as you trek, miraculously,

   From NYC to Mexico, for your sixty-nine days…

Of static, or moneyless motion? You have an address to

   Go to. Godspeed you black champion! – Today, I walked

Kingston – pale legs, sunlit, ‘eased into pain,’ faint smiles

   Playing on luscious lips, M.A. Eng. Lit., gathering; white wine and

Shy; Pantha du Prince: tuned Stickle Bricks – impressions, fleeted

   And flanked for burgeoning memory: my Belle, ma belle;

Sons des mots qui vont trés bien ensemble; oui, je t’aime; l’amour

   On the Old London Road, telephoned – toppled red dominoes.

Waterloo’s deserted European route plays thespian host to its

   Heritage’s childermass, as St. Pancras bolsters international,

With its great train shed brocading its finery, before the Western

   World appears yonder – dawn, horizon, vista. – A handshake

Undersea; French-Anglais, – London-Paris, Dover-Calais.

   Sometimes, of this city; all I see is trains, with their hypnotic rhythms

            Listing

                        Stations:

Through Bakerloo: Paddington, Edgware Road,

   Marylebone, Regent’s Park, Oxford Circus;

Pic’dilly Circus, Charing Cross –’ve flown:

   Embankment, Waterloo – delivers us.

Southwest – Vauxhall, Queenstown Road, Clapham-

   Junction, Wandsworth, Putney, Barnes and Mortake,

North Sheen, Richmond, St. Marg’rets, Twickenham,

   Strawberry Hill, Teddington, Hampton… wake!

Kingston-Upon-Thames – The Royal Borough:

   A home (where the heart is!) from home, far-fond,

Your home, your warmth, your life, and mine occur,

   There, - here, - between: and together tie bond.

‘Why isn’t there a train from Thames Ditton

To a green lane t’other end of Britain?’

London, you are so big. – Adam said. Big, hypnotic, endless,

   Self-referential and insular – on escalator ads, London, London,

London cathodes. On a South West commuter an old couple sit

   Perusing the Metro and Evening Standard respectively; the gentleman

Leans over pointing to a little column: “Even the French say that London

   Is better than Paris.” “Mmhmm.” Smiles. Later, the lady leans, points,

“Nine suicides on the Tube today…” “London.” The word is spoken in 55

   Living languages, at least, in all directions, in every earshot; perpetuating.

Now you’ve left where do you live? Cellular or agoraphobically?

   Texas, you’ve told me, hauled up in some joint… For what crime

Or misdemeanour? Are ‘friends’ electric? Do best ones go awry? London

   Misses you, surely, even if you were sometimes at loggerheads, sometimes

Incongruous, sometimes detrimental to one another’s mentality. (Sub)cultured

   Conduits of life, lines, lanes, veins, pulsing, pulsating, part of the very fabric

Of these times; making them – historicising us, all: a tremendous pressure. Fled,

   From, us, all. Understandable. All I want is a simple day, sometimes.

Like that return to the countryside, to the ‘good life;’ though when the

   Provincials invade the City, Houses are broken into, unlike our peace-

Ful demonstration over only a matter of life and death, two million strong. We

   See those times approach again, of riot and uproar, students demolished by

Thatching straw set alight on streets of quashed freedom of speech; a truncheon

   Reads us our rights, a kettle quarantines our hopes and dreams – left, without

A leg to stand on; the blood-sucking cleg betrays another sector – a ‘public’ become

   Endangered when a member of it speaks – they’re excised and side-lined as other.

A category, statistically, always alien, always threatening, through their inverted politics -

    Of which, London vibrantly vibrates and fibrillates, from suburb to centre, wharf to

Periphery. On which, I find you, I live you, more than anything, my life, my future;

   I’m trying, and fighting, and keeping, and pushing, and moving, and negotiating,

Through crowds of crowded crowd, all of whom have chosen to choose their choicest

   Choices, and raise their vocalist voices; over whom, for you, I cry. My love. London.

My love, is London, is in London, but she is to share woods/forests and branch out anon,

   And on we’ll keep, as that, our city, to us, falls sleep, but revolves on and on deeper,

In deep.