Friday 26 September 2014

OBSERVATIONS IN GREENWICH PARK FROM THE JAMES WOLFE STATUE, 200?







sense the space out there
     over London’s cranes
sense and taste the sausage I ate
     washed down with water
     cost me 1.35
feel the crunch of the paper I sit on
     keeping tourists 
     behind me
     out of my view

workmen - in yellow
     so I can see them
eating lunch with the sun
others – clang and rattle steel
     behind a mesh fence

man in brown shorts lies like its summer
     paper spread out
     alone
     on a hillock

see a single bird fearless
     flying below me
     and 
     a 
     helicopter thudding in circles
between orderly clouds

see the school I’m nearly at
     (not really missing my job at all)
     and 
     London’s new towers
they’re building a skyline 
at 
last

the dome – I feel waste
it’s desolate there
spiked
New Labours sunken Death Star

slim girl smokes alone
wearing fawn
- helicopter’s bothering 
               me 
               like 
               a 
               fly

hear foreign languages
hear phrase ‘naval college’
that’s down there too
     demobbed 
     Harrier 
     poised out the front

feel the sun on my back
     its 2pm
and the shadow of a woman startles me
she’s taking the hill tentatively

power station is quiet
next to a slot of grey Thames
(I live 25 miles east)

to the west
river curves like Eastenders
a brown sail sails slowly
there’s a logo on it in yellow 
     I 
     cannot 
     make 
     out

     smell 
     air
and sausages – want another one
     smell 
     damp
from the ground I lay my paper on

hear digital clicks
from the 
fawn girl 
who’s picked
to snapshot a lady tourist alone

orange tractor like a toy
Heathrow jet whines 
sci-fi 
noise

canary wharf
huddles
its empty floors and sudden towers
its bent windows
     together
     under
     one 
     blinking light

some bird is cackling
from the dark in the trees
     they 
     sway with patience
wood and time

the bulb of the observatory
     lurks behind me
where children flock with backpacks
for the artificial line
     (we stole it from India 
     because we ran the world)

demented laughter
from a 
child in blue
squatting at the fence
looking up 
at his parents
     calling 
     him 
     back

the river
murky – then silver catching the September sun

     [I'm at the bottom of the hill now 
     where the toy tractor chugged]

look up at where I was
see silver lined clouds
and 
the 
sailors 
red ball


from en.wikipeadia.org

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