Escalator grooves rising, rising;
falling, fell. Scales in a music box.
Light pools throb on a pin-striped river:
mechanical moonshine's pallid glow
down the canyon of poster-painted rocks.
Smooth glazed porcelaine, mahogany
line halls' drab, ponderous stone;
all surfaces slowly curving -
round and on, and on, as though
tubular arteries, not built - earth grown.
Privet, cool and dark is sprinkled
with ashes, greased where snails' sheen.
creeps and blotches living borders
stubbornly in car-packed streets,
guarding little tracts of green.
Off the road - a dell of daisies!
patch of Eden by the underpass;
Alveolus of the city;
fresh storm-washed, breathes heavy
hayish scent of soaked mown grass
Fountain voice' thin frequency
whispers children, beyond our range;
'Come!' - they stand around its splashing,
a moment's awe - and then begin
the wild ritual of water games.
Lamps on stalks appear for nightshift;
mandarine suffusion glows
through the settling dusk; and now -
in shadows: the footfall quickens;
in brightness to a saunter slows.
Coloured lights, a shot-silk river.
The stellar blink of a dark-cloaked plane.
Car-doors slam like a book well finished.
Through muggy blue the mellow clank
and shushsh of a distant train.
Few places in the world have more poems written about them than...London!
Children playing in a fountain in London, England