Poem Of The Month: April 2013

London pt.1

Avid Gaile

Limited

Licensed Sex Shop

W1/W2

Manette Street, Charing Cross Road

Drizzle-ridden Soho

Like an Amsterdam opening

Without the gusto

Neon umbrellas reflect

The electric rain

The gherkin in the pickled evening

The gangrenous penis seen

From Bank balcony

After Camden, reforming…

Shisha pipes drawing the

Close of day, as Cedric

And Omar take the stage

We discuss your conclusions

Met in collusion; on the

Error of my ways.

Sylvia Plath accompanies me now

In this place where life is so immediate,

On the tube trains to Mile End

And Notting Hill Gate; where the

Realists must call ‘real,’ and

Wyndham Lewis still exhibits.

Study every face on an escalator

And fall in love with every other

Woman’s. But even Hyde Park, when

Quiet in the even, isn’t Stephen’s Green.

I’m not a big fan of the London

Ales, but the Guinness is good in

Sawyers and Dickens; stowed

Away in a coved corner of the

Pub on a rainy day; medium,

Late and grey. Claustrophobic and

Disinterested; stories starving to be told –

A tale of a tube, of a pub, of

The little boy lost, drowning sorrows and

Morrows in London’s prosody.

But this is the poet’s city:

Something ethereally; underground

As much as o’er, creative of woebegone

Wonderment, more than Reading

Or Didcot, clasps the county-

Boy’s hand and racks his brain socket,

Filling his head with ideas,

Stifled by the heavy breathings

Of those buried tunnels.

– It’s yours, mover and shaker.

Paddington Station arches grandly;

Wood, glass and metal above me.

But Paris Nord has better destinations;

Bruxelles or Lille over Greenford and Radley,

And Amsterdam’s station was full of

Angels; Madrid’s streamed golden light.

No little lost bear there though;

With a red hat and a blue coat,

Who could never mix his paint right:

London had coloured my morning’s night.

Copyright © Daniel Bristow 2013

All rights reserved

The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77

of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

to be identified as the author of this work.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library.