I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, wood and clay,
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.
Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, wash away,
Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
London
crossfigured
creeping with trams
and the artists on sundays
in the summer
all ‘tracking Nature’
in the suburbs
You would have thought it foolish to speak to the dead,
but I have lived two decades longer now than you
and all this time I have carried you in my head
so I think I have the right to question what you said,
dear teacher. My religious upbringing’s residue,
you would have thought it foolish. To speak to the dead,
however, is sometimes necessary, especially haunted
by all the things I know you hoped I’d do
with all this time that I have carried you in my head.
In a dream last night I followed where you led
Look at the sneaky crocodile,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh,
He's swimming down the River Nile,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh.
The crocodile has a swishing tail,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh,
He's swims along and leaves a trail,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh.
The crocodile has two great big jaws,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh,
The crocodile has two great big claws,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh.
See his jaws are open wide,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh,
A little fish is swimming inside,
I-oh, I-oh, I-oh.
Oh no, he's not...he's gone the other way.
O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour,
And loud the tempest's roar;
A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tower,
Lord Gregory, ope thy door.
An exile frae her father's ha',
And a' for loving thee;
At least some pity on me shaw,
If love it may na be.
Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove
By bonie Irwine side,
Where first I own'd that virgin love
I lang, lang had denied.
How aften didst thou pledge and vow
Thou wad for aye be mine!
And my fond heart, itsel' sae true,
It ne'er mistrusted thine.
Two of them
with chests like blond silk
cornsilk hair
stalled in traffic
in the awful heat
they smiled
were they messengers
delivering through the open window
promises or lies or invitations?
Boys are everywhere
at noon they glide
between parched cars
bare broad shoulders
color of chestnut colts
in the poison dusk
they catch falling stars
in their silly mouths
for girls, for each other
their teeth gleam reflections
off blue rayon
You couples lying
where moon-scythes and day-scythes reaped you,
browning fruit falls and sleeps
in tangled nests, the wild grass,
falls from your apple tree that still grows here:
cry for your dead hero, his weak sword, his flight,
that you were slaughtered and your bed poured whiteness,
the issue of murdered marriage dawns.
The streets crack, a house falls open to the air,
sun and rain lie on the bed.
And the river still runs in a child’ s hands
under the factory’ s black hulk,
It’ s not that I don’ t like the hospital.
Those small bouquets of flowers, pert and brave.
The smell of antiseptic cleansers.
The ill, so wistful in their rooms, so true.
My friend, the one who’ s dying, took me out
To where the patients go to smoke, IV’ s
And oxygen in tanks attached to them —
A tiny patio for skeletons. We shared
A cigarette, which was delicious but
Too brief. I held his hand; it felt
Like someone’ s keys. How beautiful it was,
The sunlight pointing down at us, as if
A range of clouds banked up behind the peak
Of that apocryphal
Blue mountain, with a wide, oblique
Burst of late sun
Projecting at the east’ s receding wall
A film of what the day so far has done:
A wind that tries to scrape
The breaking waves up as they run
Across the bay
And shatter at the foot of Fluted Cape
In tern and gannet-printed veils of spray;
And trees the wind has caught,
Which seem too self-contained to sway
When they are blown,
And only move as a pleasing afterthought.
