The clouds were all aligned
as if programmed by someone higher up.
Perfectly silhouetted against the clouds,
the London skyline was allowed to shine,
The city's grand disguise.
For a moment you could forget
it's underbelly,
especially when her eyes were
a beautiful shade of
dark blue.
Yet it's deathly cold waters below
were but a constant reminder
not to let your feet warm,
at least not too much.
Tag Archives: London Poetry
August Poetry: Southwark Park
I sat here a year ago,
in Southwark Park
that early eve
when time felt slow.
Today it's noisy,
and you're not here,
yet thoughts and memories,
keep you near.
Crack goes a cricket bat,
the roaring of a plane,
children scream on and on,
playing all the same.
The trees remain just as loud,
whispering away,
muttering about the creatures
whom in the sunshine lay.
The plane drifting up above,
in between the clouds,
it's sound circling down below
in amongst the crowds.
On the grass lay many leaves,
as they did last year,
crunching underfoot just the same
had you been sat here.
Cricketers yell here and there,
chasing a little red ball,
it dots about the circled pitch,
that makes them cry and call.
I sit here by myself today,
observing those around,
no longer in that little bubble,
that felt so safe and sound.
I like this park,
Southwark park,
I think I'll come again.
Perhaps next time not alone
but with a marvellous friend.
April Poetry: A good read
He'd found himself
nestled between the pages
of a book again.
The grand ceilings
and gentle mutterings of which
vibrated through the wooden shelves he was leaning on had always comforted him.
These keeper of books had
existed long before him,
and they'd likely exist long after,
save for a fire...or worse.
At that point he'd become distracted by
the swaying of a summers dress,
carrying embers of the chaos that
existed outside the library walls.
The heat today was somewhat unbearable,
the books and archaic paintings gatekeeping
the cool air that drifted in between these walls.
He looked up from the hem,
her eyes meeting his for a fleeting second,
she seemed too focused for fools like
him,
driven by an inate sense of pride,
or at least that's what he'd told himself.
For all he knew,
quiet book dwellers were
far from her usual type.
Returning to the familiar feel of the crumpled pages,
his heart beat began to calm once more.
Gliding his finger across the wrinkled
edges was as close to physical connection
he'd come across in the past
24 hours.
A book could hardly reject it's reader,
at least not verbally,
an experience he'd hardly want to
live out again.
One was enough embarrassment to last
a lifetime.
If only he'd been as good with words back then
as he was now,
not that it'd matter in the slightest.
He'd have still failed to
squeak out a retort even if he'd
had had an Oxford English Dictionary at hand.
Anyway, it wouldn't have been gentlemanly
to bark back,
he was better than that,
or so he'd told himself during the
late hours of night.
August Poetry: Primrose Hill
The city lay in front of everyone,
a model village to them,
they had never felt so big.
A city that once swallowed them up
with its’ big skyscrapers and wall art
now seemed all so small.
“London eye, London eye”
a little child called out.
A large spinning wheel now
fit between his two fingers.
He tried pinching it, but it wouldn’t seem to
move.
A panorama of symbols
filled the landscape,
from edge to edge
a focus point merely blurring them out.
They would never disappear.
Sprawled out before them,
an extravagant banquet.
A feast fit for royalty.
often gobbled up by
those who sat
in quiet halls
in which ceilings remained
inexplicably high
along with their standards of life.
There stood as many cranes as there were
high-rises.
A future that pointed towards
the sky,
hinting at growth,
but only in the literal sense.
What was the cost?
Soon the skyline would be full
each building bigger than the other,
a concrete competition.
Yet,
the people wouldn’t change,
staying as they had been,
even shrinking.
An earth that could no longer feed them
through the greed of those sat in their vast spaces.
They would carry on starving
as the towers
would gorge themselves on
the sun that reigned above them,
casting a shadow amongst those
that built them,
that birthed
these monstrous
Giants of the sky.
Next Up London Waterloo
I am not the first person to dislike London. Frankly, any Londoner who gets the tube on the daily Must think much worse of the city. Jumbling cursives in their head of about the person next to them Who once again lacks general hygiene, An unfortunately recurring theme in the realms of public transport, Especially in the big city. I recognise that I am nowhere near the first person to hold disdain towards the large concrete jungle. Nor am I the first person to mildly enjoy it, I am definitely not the first to fall in love with it. A quiet, mid-afternoon commute leaves me calmly scrambling towards The underground at Waterloo. A quick 10-minute ride to London Bridge, Followed by a short walk, And there I am, Situated south of the river In recently-gentrified Bermondsey. Tennis courts to your right, White men in spectacles reading short novels in the park to your left. Artisan shops and pizza houses sprinkled here and there, The walk is in fact an enjoyable one. It feels quaint, An effect that people pay handsomely for in the big city. Interesting how people who live somewhere big are always searching for somewhere That feels small. Like the human mind needs a sanctuary from the bright lights and grotesque buildings. I arrive at my friends. Well, not quite arrive as I signal up that I’m here. Within a minute I have gone from scurrying the concrete streets to floating up amongst the clouds. A slight exaggeration, yet it is easy to feel such a way. Pleasantries aside, I head towards his balcony. A view of London that not many people are lucky enough to see. High up, you feel amongst the buildings. They no longer seem so daunting, The playing field has been levelled. Whilst you’re not a twenty thousand tonne combination of glass and concrete You’re not far off. The Shard sits about a kilometre down the road, Tower bridge off to your right And London Eye twirls in front of you. A set of symbols, recognised around the globe, Are now your playground. What’s stopping you from moving the Gherkin south of the river? Sure, it’d confuse the hell out of people But they’d surely move on, The maps would get updated, People at google would sort it out in a heartbeat, Perhaps the old paper tourist maps would suffer but A bit of change was due. What’s the fun in a city that never changes? It’s easy to enjoy London from a spacious balcony with a nice view. You don’t have to worry about rent prices, People don’t whizz by you at double the speed, You can’t hear the screeching of old tube lines, You don’t see men in suits on their way to client meetings, You pay attention to it all or nothing at all. The choice is yours. I like London these days. I like how warm it is. I like how pretty is. I like how calm it is. That is London, right?
wear shoes, write poems 