An intrepid outsider just visiting London,
I’m smitten, dazzled, by stunning illuminations,
From within a black cab, transporting me,
Not only weaving in present day airy streets,
But through stacked layers of storied history;
Some dark, treacherous and dastardly sinister,
Some light, celebratory and blithely triumphant.
On alighting from the Hackney Carriage,
(use of the word ‘carriage’ emphasising a
vivid stretch of a willing imagination.)
London museum beckons, offering pleasure,
Absorbing tableau’s of delightful treasure,
Engaging unfettered thoughts and feelings,
Absorbing echoing cries of distant past lives,
Reminders of who we were and who we are,
Plunging the archaic depths of lurid displays,
Delicate fingers pressing upon vibrant pulses,
Within this webbed tomb of sanitised decadence.
Above, in the coolness of encroaching night,
She slumbers, this anchored sprawling behemoth,
Suffering barking dogs, wailing of infants,
Sweet kisses of lust in cardboard strewn alleys,
Screeches from a gaggle of ‘hen-partying’ girls,
Screams from urban foxes, cries of a feral cat,
Curtailed by hurried rumble of clattering steel,
Train arteries busy pumping, wheel to wheel,
Ferrying the masses, crammed together classes,
Silent tubes disguising the numbness we feel,
At destinations end our tensions slyly unpeel.
Pedestrians weaving amongst city detritus,
City gents, courting couples, thieves and tramps,
Amidst intermittent beeps of frantic car horns,
Squealing brakes and hot roaring engines,
She encompasses this amorphous miasma,
Towering skyward, snaking deep underground,
A blaze of coloured light, her own silent sound,
Inhabitants ‘pigged together’ the majority above,
But many, ignored and mistreated, surviving below,
Recognised and avoided, as we pretend not to know.
Ancient sewers, dead rivers and even deader bones,
Where now, the bedecked Town Crier? Is all well?
My very being saturated within this teeming city,
Of the city, I’m now enmeshed in the infrastructure,
Heart, mind and spirit willingly shackled, captivated by,
Cold agglomeration of steel, glass, concrete and stone,
Wreathed in transient emotions of warm flesh and bone.
Brash glitz and glamour of threatened Tin Pan Alley,
Cultural elite behind facades of Doric columns,
While Roman foundations bold form, hold firm,
Twisting through the underneath, far beyond forever,
London crunches into the future, unstoppable,
Embracing humanity in a technological fervour,
She adapts, snarls, struts, proud and confident,
Akin to a sentient beast lapping up our needs,
Feeding desires, never judging, only accepting,
Giving and breathing life unto all, even me,
An intrepid outsider just visiting London.
Written about London, where I often visit, a city I love and appreciate like no other place on Earth.
