on saturday morning we grace around recycled rustic tables, lowering our heads over gluten free brown toast topped with gently scrambled free range eggs, adding soya milk to decaffeinated, ethically sourced coffee, self contained in guilt free reusable cups -

and still we fret.

on a chilly spring evening,
the ethereal voices sang.
above st. paul's,
the moon overhangs.

the tube passes by,
"mind the gap," he said.
eight-am rush,
the iconic blue and red.

it's quiet and serene,
the moss-covered graves.
yet by the chapel,
the union jack waves.

london brings me joy,
like no other city.
the next time i visit,
i wish it isn’t nippy!

This is my lament for London and its young lives lost:


Did you see a tarnished surface
that made you look again
Was it reflected in the lyrics
in the anthem of the Thames

Was the traffic still diverted
Had the Borough lost good men
Were mothers dry from crying
at the anthem of the Thames

Did you see the children drowning
Was the tide too high from rain
Were the barges towed in silence
past the anthem of the Thames

Were the songs drowned out by shouting
Did the words turn boys insane
Did the drum beats beat past midnight
to the anthem of the Thames

Was it echoed through the arches
Did the shadows hide the stains
Did the wounded walk til morning
through the anthem of the Thames

Will you still be here at day break
Do you claim this grey domain
Will you pray for restoration
of the anthem of the Thames

It all happened
Once Upon A Time, like in the fairy tales, but
it went backwards
and backwards
and
backwards,
opposite and upside down
like he was in Alice in Wonderland

and the wicked stepmother was not a stepmother at all;
with no pointed chin or sharp daggers for eyes.
Instead she looked like a princess
with a gentle face and round, brown eyes
like a mother.

She was good at goodness
at being kind
at loving him in front of everybody’s eyes
and making him think
it wasn’t so bad, after all.

But she was also good at
shouting
and yelling
and hitting and smacking,
at giving him the belt
and the switch
and sometimes the slipper.

And in his fairy tale
there was no kind, gentle father.
There was no father.
“Gone,” she’d say of him, “drunk somewhere.
With a *****.
Dying, hopefully.
If he was here
he’d **** you.”

Sometimes he
wished,
hoped
his father would come back and
live up to his promise
and ****
and ****
and ****
and ****

and ****
until there was nobody left to ****
because they were all dead and destroyed
and dead
and destroyed
and their clothes mopped up their own blood
and when he was sobered enough to realise what he’d done
he’d stand over them,
mournfully,
and weep
over his drunken mistakes
over just who he had
murdered
with his own knife, who he had cut
cut
cut
jagged shapes into their flesh,
torn pieces of them away
like he had drunk away pieces of himself;
an eye for an eye;
an equal pound of their fair flesh,
cut off and taken,
stolen,
like a jewel in the night.

But no father came,
and he stayed dissatisfied and alive
and his mother came
and belted him
whenever she pleased.

He grew up dissatisfied,
lived dissatisfied,
and anger grew in his bloodied heart,
furious,
bleeding with the pain of it
growing to despise his father’s ******
even more than he despised his father
and his mother
and himself.

He learnt all their names:
Nichols
and Chapman
and Stride and Eddowes

and Kelly.
And he stalked the streets,
searching
searching
searching
searching

searching,
for they had lain with his father
and had wronged him
by leaving him
alone with his mother
and the belt
and the switches,
and if they wronged him,
should he not revenge?