the hand of the market
shoves capital ha’penny
human filings upon the quay
east-end salt and sweat
abolished twice daily
hosed down by a cleansing jet
global counting houses
and their washed-out skies
concealing pixel plantation
in seamless stop-motion
thames basin banality
slavery upstanding
in shot-blasted shades of grey
same morning, different day
he loved his native town
and ever sought its welfare
in glorious emerald glaze
with letters edged in gold
your epitaph and gravestone
are (in several places)
displaced or erased
it says here, “forty years as
sunday school organist,” so
behind the window-grilled pub
the site of your piece
is the place to sneak a piss
“they rest from their labours
and their works do follow them”
(that is, fourteen pints later)
from carriage-clocked home and hearth
far away into the sullen earth
live-wires straddle the mantle
as if this earth were vinyl,
trains etch epic long-players:
trumpet, clatter, bass and cymbal
fleeting, waveform topography:
a hedgerow, river, field, canal
feedback, municipal musicality
an oven, gas-holder, graveyard, spoil.
don’t forget
to take your belongings with you
under potter’s clay skies
every dampened month’s
unending spring of industry
in blackening winter beige
twelve corroded portraits
and shraff for fallen blossom
the scent of scraps in butcher’s bins
the season after history
(image via mike rawlins on flickr)
bring on the grim gleam
lacquer blackened bricks and bin bags
covet our terrace-back tapestry
lavish budget boot polish
all over the half-cobbled alley
adjust clay tiles and chimney pots
affix to the clearing blue sky
pied wagtails will surmise
- in a hop-skip critique -
that character shits on charm
