BEFORE THE WHEEL

It is a lurid dusk: Parliament,

flat and black against the mauve,

becomes a cardboard cut-out.

Jagged edges of London plane

are browning underfoot, and rain betrays

porosity of working shoes.

Language, like the river, runs between us.

And Pugin’s counterweight is now aquarium,

colony of Big Mac and Marriott.

Bewitched by boundary,

I’m windswept as the leaves along

the embankment’s ebb and flow.

Where antique dolphins balance,

their wan globes merging

with the spectral creep of dawn.

A left foot plants the path:

unanswered, Johnny’s Jubilee taunt remains,

my ransom note memento.

Seeing no other way but this:

a fallen torso, uplifting arms

mark volunteers of 36 to 39.

Forget six counties, take different stairs:

beggary is a hunched greatcoat

in the mouth of some beholder.

Wash it out with Listerine,

and over-priced penthouse flats –

the security guard comes as standard.

Look back at half-shrouded morning,

and Big Ben’s still precision:

right-angled into thrush egg blue,

cranes swing their orange box-kite limbs –

pivots of hoisted judgement.

A Nitrile glove has fallen,

pairless beneath the scaffolding;

red hand discarded, supine

under a flag of convenience.

Silhouettes ride your churning surface:

the Q8 fuel barge branded

by flaunt of gaudy pennants.

Commuters in a sweaty tide,

return full circle to their Waterloo;

swell the ways to petty tyranny.

Trackless, my flange of anger

grinds a furrowed brow

at daily sights unseen, ignored.

vi.2000