Tag Archives: London

London Heathrow

March 25, 2023London, poemLondon, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Even fifty miles out
in the predawn I hear
the great jets lowering
readying to land
amid lights, busyness and bustle

I grew up close by
deafened slightly
captured wholly
by your dirty glamour

Friday Poem: The Taxi

November 18, 2022Friday Poem, London, loveamy lowell, Friday Poem, London, love, taxiThe Cheesesellers Wife

When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

by Amy Lowell, 1874 – 1925

West London, 1970s

November 16, 2022Life, London, memory, poem, Poetrydawn chorus, Life, London, memories, nature, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Every morning the Tube
trains sparked their way across points and
through grubby fields
off to plunge deep into London

Every morning, a deafening of birds
massive dawn chorus
rambunctious, full, above all loud
louder that the traffic on an infant A40

Every morning, the sound of garage doors opening
bicycles and mopeds eased quietly out
Fathers heading off to shifts
in the factories two miles south

then back to sleep, to dream
teenage longings
waiting for the alarm
and the rush to school

Tube Train

October 19, 2022Life, London, poem, PoetryLife, London, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

He stands, legs nonchalantly hooked
around the central pole,
clean pressed stovepipe jeans, battered Leather,
coloured spiky hair, life creased face,
lively eyes roving across fellow travellers.
We nod recognition, two observers on the night tube.
A tall Rasta joins at the next stop
dreadlocks tumbling from pirate scarf
drinking from a bottle swathed in paper
impervious to all.
Around us, Chinese teenagers sweet with Peter Pan charm
sated concert goers, weary tourists, glossy City traders.
These two self contained gentlemen rise above
embody the blunt London of my childhood.
Punk and Rasta.

City Horizons

April 27, 2022poem, Poetrycity, Life, London, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

In a city
the horizon
is a closed door

Lost City

January 8, 2022London, poem, Poetrycity, Life, London, loss, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Vanished cities, drowned, razed
desolation and grief done and dusted
Atlantis gone into to myth
Carthage, Mohenjo-daro, Great Zimbabwe
all left ruins to wander and wonder
in history’s depth lie others
lost in deserts, buried in forests, slipped into oceans
more will go as sea levels rise, storms devour

There are other ways to lose a city
I have lost mine, changed and changing
beyond what I once knew
foreign in my home town
I archeologise
observing layers buried by new wealth
(transitory puffs of global capital)
visualise the people that have moved on
as I have
refugees priced out, social-cleansed
living on the fringes
looking back to better times