Jonathan Beale- Three Poems

Terraced London

There they stand together: alternately cardinal numbered

For over a century.  Once the dwellings of the masses;

Nothing of significance,  simple lines of brick, mortar,

mason, and stone.  And now rhythmically numbered:  1A.1B.3A.3B.5A….

from the rat-tat-tat-tattooing down & up & along the street.

From the day-to-day to the daily comings-and-goings: going work, school, the shop.

From the kite tiled footpaths of the black and white chevrons -

That the housewives once would mop erosivily & chatting over

The fence “to her next dawr” They used to sweep so clean -

Stand as that first impression impression:

In this seemingly classical Iron signed land of this lost mythology

Not of Rome or Greece but of Wandsworth, Ham, Richmond, Pimlico,

And, Chiswick. The now serene tree lined, once alive with the Blitz hell.   

Life’s stories, now not of Dante or Ovid but now told through estate agents.

 

The Accident of an African High Road

It was an African high St without the organised regimented

State of brand market leaders and the fools ready to part with their money.

“’Business-is- business’” the wizen old man said. Heavy in knowledge

And worldly experience, yet light on money and trappings.

Chickens and cattle seemed to conduct the order and pace of things

“you open” he said “can be “ started cooking some strange looking flesh.

There is no order in this place managed by concrete subjunctive

The women carry their goods – the children’s smile by the lite road

The dust constantly wishes washes in its own onomatopoeic kind of way

So far removed from Fulham, Oslo, and those tarmacked western cities

They sit around consuming, time, beer, and cigarettes;

Images of Coke~Cola and the vast images of corporate business

Parkinsons Law is king here although no one has heard of it.

Days come and go go go – lost In the dust of the passing trucks. 

A viewing from a street perhaps.

1

As seen from the dawn, unlikely -

the panorama opens.

Another stage is set from behind the curtain.

Creating a new window of opportunity

The infants pass by into adulthood

Growing into their pinstripedness

leading them along to an infinity

The windows show the other medusas.

From this Pandora ’s Box, that cannot

Hide the Blows out the dust corrupts

As the light rushes in

Showing paths and scars

The way to go and not

Clouds touch windows

As the emotional bankrupt pass by

And delivery vans replacing the

Coal wagons a few whose ghosts remain.

From the kerb and path they plod tread

On and on and on until – on Eureka moment 

See them look up to the sky

Ferryboats leave every day and as random

to any one of a million destinations

The whole of the day view from the banks of the kerb.