In a stirring river,
Garrotted by mud and each rusted carcass
dumped over the slow years -
The dredgers cut down
And saw the metal of a woman,
A frothy corruption, naked, open.
They prized her from the mire and saw the city
through the eyes of the sewer.
The Lady from the Thames.
Her skin broke when she flopped on board.
-
Caved in by the tumbling sky
and the air, dry like leather,
Caught in his throat.
The Kilburn high-rise walls peeled like fingers
and the cogs clicked to fast to bite back.
He turned to the sepia city
like new life
And looked for her.
River of time elapsed
churning up memory
Each gallon lurches grit and rot.
trolley and corpse shudder
Forward, backward.
Teasing in smashed bottle
She was young once.
Looked just like her mum.
'What a muddy little angel you are,
What a muddy little angel you are.'
Til the glitz, the cracking lips
bet on kindness.
'I remember being a girl -
I waited for my mother every morning -
She was smiling and never sad.'
The sunken root scratches for life
Underneath vast, forgotten hangers.
The widow maker sheds her bark
and keep pace with the smog.
Sees what we all don't know.
Lives where we all can't see.
In a squealing Kings cross they met,
He led her to a room with broken windows
and one swinging bulb,
She wasn't scared.
Dank Amazon.
The roots intertwine with wires
sprawling grip for sulking glass tress.
'I'm a cruel joke don't you see?'
As her eyes slowly rolled
'I'm sorry'
As her fist unclenched
'It sorry'
As her knees went limp
'I'm sorry'.
Belted up, un-silent night
Screeching myre, gridlocked light,
He left her in the silt
And to the sound of screaming vans,
Runs rabbit down the hole
The hiss 187, 187 from the radio.
Alive in neon puddles that shatter
Under his pounding feet.
-
It was her who the dredgers found and
As looked to her form and
As they looked to her cuts
They thought that
She was the river.
Just another smashed bottle,
Un-watered.
