PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi

the relationship held sacrosanct
form an identity's disjecta membra
a confluence of fallacies made anthropomorphic
body diminshed by nervous exhaustion
mind abandoned to melancholy obsession
scattered hapharzadly in front of those
whom had once offered solicitude

filled by yearning to be stoic, saturnine, sangfroid
passsing glances, chance encounters
aren't caustic to the indifferent
incondite hopes nurtured by solitude
clinging to the idea that all is bitingly internicine
misplaced in the droors of time

Bad poetry makes me ugly:
Look, each line, a cliche
Each blemish, a simile;
My smile grows more bitingly smug
With each overzealous superlative.

My raccoon eyes are ringed
By metaphorical self delusions,
Badly performing alliteration-
All improvisations of incompetence;
And then the clash of symbol, deranges all thought.

Choose only the wound that is in your heart
That you would earnestly enlarge upon,
Steadfastly ignoring all the others.

woman – it is when your hairbreadth laughter
spreads into the world, pressed low against the breast
of grass and skirts of flowers,

     like a well-oiled lamp, you proceed with your
terse splendors, your sharp wingtips curved with gropes
of steel with what notion of a senseless blow but a smile
scrunched deep within the water?

rammed into the dry throat of the afternoon,
   a hot flesh half-bitingly rippling, fondling into my throbbing
water – from the abrupt, sweet-smelling rise of tide
    arrives what I am in pursuit as a man, smoothly writhing
the languor of tired believing the always, do you still cling

                              to me like harsh wind in Spring?

When the tempest has passed
I will wait for you
In the calm after the storm,
After the wind has died down
Leaving behind a bitingly cold stillness
A memory of lightning in the air.

Then, you will come to me
Speaking of broken trees
And newly green hillsides
Like the wispy stubble of a young man,
Inviting me to breathe in the icy-clean air,
Begging me to follow the weak winter sun.

The calm is all I had prayed for
In the dark, wild hours
As I cowered in my shelter
While the thunder pounded me underfoot,
The lightning burned its way through me
And my back was broken by the gale.

You will find your solace in its ending
And I will not have the heart to tell you
That I am not an adolescent hillside
Emerging renewed, having soaked up all the rain,
I am the broken tree
that could not weather the wind.

No wonder lies beside my fallen trunk
Only splinters and twisted bark
Mold and moss begin to claim me
And I shall let them tie me down
There is nothing left for me
Now even my roots are gone.

When she was younger,
She’d been completely enticed
By the rimy landscape
Of a lake frozen solid
With February’s frigid winds
And the winter’s harrowing temperature.
She often wondered about how the sun would’ve looked,
Shattered into a million minute particles
As it peeked through the ice in mesmerizing fractions,
And glowed quietly underneath the surface
Before finally disintegrating into the lonely darkness below.
She was helplessly infatuated,
And with every short breath
Made visible by the wintry air,
She longed to lie at the bottom
And be inspired
By the murky glow of the icy sunlight above her.
So one day,
She set herself free from her longing.
And she tiptoed carefully over the bitingly cold floor
As she pursued a suitable entry.
The wind,
Catching snowflakes within its frozen rhythm
And casting them onto her rosy cheeks
As it howled across the barren lake
Was acutely distressing,
But she would be underneath it soon.
And without warning,
The doorway appeared beneath her feet
And she slipped through it without having to knock.
And she began to sink-
The bitter harshness of the water enough to **** her,
And her lungs seared as they screamed for air,
As her limbs thrashed frantically,
But she let herself fall,
looking up to the eerie radiance of the lake’s surface
And smiling gently,
Before finally disintegrating into the lonely darkness below.

j.s.

There was once a time,
Bleak, desolate, and bitingly chill.
The thought of the following events
Brought upon me a voracious thrill.
As of now, my worthless life shall unfold.
I shall die in the lethal and merciless cold.

when i look up at night
begging the stars to take me to them,
you tell me not yet,
hang on a little longer

but what to?
the ice is starting to crack,
the bitingly cold water below me
makes the blood in my veins stop coursing

soon i will be submerged.
any remaining heat left in me
will be stolen from my body,
the way dusk steals the daylight from the sky

you tell me to hang on,
but what if there’s nothing to hang on to?

are apologies required for the way
my veins pulse and burn for you?
for how your lips gracing my forehead
creates rivers of happiness and safety
within my skin, tentative drops of warmth
cascading down my skin?

it's some kind of shame that the only
way my words spill out is for your
hand in mine but

i know in the hallows of my heart
and the marrow of my bones that this
love is true.

the ache is so bitter after the
sun has kissed the horizon
sometimes it feels so bitingly hard
to breathe without your
body next to mine

She immortalises me in
pictures of
poetry
I live forever in
her times.

It was bitingly cold at the
fold of the day,
the sun was tucked up
for the night.

Shadows escaped from the
candle lit room and wandered
through corridors to find me,
locked in by the words of her
poetry.

In certain lights she may appear
An apparition dressed in white.
At other times she’s like a mist;
bitingly cold on hot humid nights.

This is the room where Rachel died;
A young bride strangled by her groom.
He then committed suicide-
having guaranteed her doom.

His soul was dragged away to Hell;
He chokes forever in sulfurous fumes.
For his Bride, a different fate;
She bides forever in Rachel’s room.

Up at the head of the stairs is her room.
You may enter in daylight.
At dusk we hear her piteous screams.
No living soul dares spend the night

Have Guile
Have an Ambition –
Ambitions reject:
Learn what you’re reaching,
Don’t expect

That Expectations
Others produce –
Your’s Inspiration,
Peace and not Truce!..

Wars let them enter
All’ round you:
Time should be Mentor,  
Just for the Few

Chosen, taken
Out, away –
Dreamer is awaken,
And on the Stray!..

Not understood is
What soars above:
“Don’t protrude us!” –
Scream “Former Tough”.

“Not so ambiguous!” –
Bitingly smile:
Aiming that Bigots lose,
Raise now your Guile!..

Like flower petals, only sharper
slowly, bitingly gather in my broken, open hands
I catch the shards
of dreams, hope, love, a future-
a family.
Piece it together, you'll see
my suffering.
But in the same time,
my flowers will bloom
They will become stronger
They will become fighters
They will proudly hold up the torch of hope
Until the shards become one

even though
it is bitingly cold
outside
it is the heat
in my *****
that wakes me
the longing for you
outweighs any frost
the thrum of my pulse
drowns out the heavy rain
I crave to feel your warmth
close to me
burn for the touch
of your arms around me
reaching out for me
in slumber
as always
this ache
settles deep in the pit
of my belly
magnet pulling
to wherever
you are.

It's 3am again.

J.C.

While not ignorin' the goodies beyond your basement endometrium
membrane & beneath, I profoundly love your 4 jagged, canine teeth
Whilst I won't ever wholly say no to your 7 wondrous teen goodies,
beyond your darker basement endometrium membrane & beneath, I
bitingly need the cutting points of your 26 hot jaguar, kitty-cat teeth

Whilst I won't ever wholly say no to your 7 wondrous teen goodies,
beyond your darker basement endometrium membrane & beneath, I
bitingly need the cutting points of your 26 hot jaguar, kitty-cat teeth

While not ignorin' the goodies beyond your basement endometrium
membrane & beneath, I profoundly love your 4 jagged, canine teeth
Whilst I won't ever wholly say no to your 7 wondrous teen goodies,
beyond your darker basement endometrium membrane & beneath, I
bitingly need the cutting points of your 26 hot jaguar, kitty-cat teeth

Whilst I won't ever wholly say no to your 7 wondrous teen goodies,
beyond your darker basement endometrium membrane & beneath, I
bitingly need the cutting points of your 26 hot jaguar, kitty-cat teeth