SENTINEL POETRY #26 Online Magazine Monthly, January 2005 |
ALAN HILL Trafalgar
Square From Charing Cross prized
forward in unwilling tribal clots The bunching and the
funnelling through Myopic strings of traffic
lights A weave of human flesh
unbalanced on the edge Of unwanted and unneeded
speech Nelson’s column pinched
arthritic grip Diviner of imperial decline Sketching ineffectual
semaphore on the Boiled out November sky Whose empty throated waves of
injured cloud Hold firm among the tints of
vapoured red That lie like slivers of a
scalded ham An admiral as a sundial for
the Sleepy headed diplomatic
rooming sheds Canada , South Africa, broken
boned Their noses forced upon the
axis Of a sailor trapped inland Of a man forever doomed to
see no ships The Woolwich
Free Ferry Time-warped, shallow-bottomed
tugs Named to crown the memory of
the founders of the welfare state The Bevin, rusting, slower in
its circles Balanced on the tides of the
grey and boiled Thames. The traffic queuing Slowing to a post war country
crawl Backing up –
undigested. An urban constipation Spilling out in the
1960’s housing blocks Red brick housing trays Aviaries of the unionised
blue collar boys Of solidarity and unicorns Museums of the full
employment times The waiting cranes that hung
above the bulging docks like hungry crows Backwater now In sight of corporate
counting sheds Canary smoking shack of
gilded tin That stabs the sun in dull
reflecting warp To charm the hungry eye
away From that this ferry still
exists There is no guarantee or plan On which to hang This quaint industrial
charm So the ferry Round and round Connecting where there is no
work To where there are no workers
left |