It was my first solo journey
( Shadwell-Whitechapel )
and I took along a notebook for recording important information
( like ‘One day I must get a life.’ )
( after ‘Adlestrop’- by Edward Thomas. )
Yes, I remember Shoreditch -
The name, because one afternoon
Confused - I took the wrong train
From Whitechapel. It was late June.
And we trundled and jogged - the train and I
Through cuttings that cut through - who knows?
Till we stopped at a single platform
And sat there in repose.
Then, for one minute, a blackbird sang.
Just that - and peace and calm,
Till the whinny of a horse arose
From some near-by urban farm.
The air brakes hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came.
On that country station platform
A stone’s throw from
It was my favourite hobby,
believe it or not.
The trains weren’t that great,
but were easily spot.
Rush hour
( after ‘Night Mail’ )
Here is the tube diving under the water - Taking the nun and the Millwall supporter - The wearers of suits - The wearers of saris - The easily shocked by dread-locked Rastafar-I’s - The pained and the pierced - The taut and tattooed - The winding and grinding and recklessly rude - Cropped barnet Alf Garnet’s with “Step outside!” stares - The good and the bad and the dodging their fares - The school kids - The school kids - The school kids some more - The swearing and shouting and holding the door - Wearers of Walkmans, hermetically sealed - The joggled and jossled and secretly feeled - The council flat Shadwells and Wapping go-getters - The Surrey Quay semis and New Cross sub-letters - The smelling of Brut and the needing a shower -
And three German tourists who asked for the Tower.
A Breach
When the supports stopped their supporting
and the shield no longer shielded.
When the soil above them shuddered
and then with a sigh,
yielded.
When the torrent and the terror flooded in and swept away
any thoughts of anything, but living one more day.
What would those men have made of us,
now tube trains bear us staring
blankly, past their tunnel walls,
unknowing and uncaring?
Age Forty
It was my most recent journey
( Whitechapel-Shadwell )
and I took along a notebook for recording important information
( like ‘One day I MUST get a life.’ )
TALES FROM THE BLACK MUSEUM.
I get to do some wierd things!
In 1995 I was asked to write some poems for Radio One’s crime week about exhibits in the police black museum at Scotland Yard. This meant I got a guided tour, with a troop of police cadets, around the Met’s private collection of dodgy crime souvenirs, which are housed in a couple of small rooms half way up their office block in Victoria.
Some exhibits made sense. You could see why they might keep them as educational aids. Others were just gratuitous ( if anyone can tell what useful purpose is served by keeping the pulped human flesh they Dynarodded out of Dennis Nielson’s drains I’d love to hear it. ) Here’s a couple of the poems.
Exhibit 466. THE KRAY TWIN’S SUITCASE..
The suitcase isn’t special, unless that is you figure,
That hid behind the handle there’s a lever like a trigger,
And if you pull that trigger then a needle is released,
The kind of thing that with a sting promotes eternal peace.
The cyanide that lurks inside was meant for judge and jury,
And prosecution witnesses who had aroused the fury,
Of Ron and Reg who took a pledge that on their judgement day,
They’d blow out their conviction if they blew the court away.
But the luggage never managed to discourage through incision.
No hit man carried out the plan. The brothers went to prison.
The good old days ruled by the Krays are now part of a past,
When it was safe to walk the streets - if you never grassed.
EXHIBIT 234. THE HANGING DISPLAY.
They say no noose is good news.
Well, here's a lot of nooses.
Each of them an ending
To pleading and excuses.
Each of them a testament,
To the skilful act of knotting.
Far more humane than gassing,
Guillotining or garrotting.
And here's an act of kindness,
See this rope.. the last in use?
See that special leather coating,
on the throat part of the noose?
They strung you up and snapped your spine.
Your windpipe was a wreck.
But at least they tried to spare you,
Getting rope burns on your neck.
EXHIBIT 723. A BLADE BOUGHT FROM A D.I.Y. SHOP.
Stanley had a Stanley Knife,
( the kind for cutting lino ).
He sharpened it till it could slice,
it's way right through a rhino
He carried it for self defence.
He carried it to brag.
And it stayed that way until the day
That Stanley lost his rag.
He lost it down a disco pub,
He lost it with his brother.
They wound each other up so much
they sprung upon each other
To settle it with slaps and kicks,
And punches in soft places.
Like two kids in a playground,
Or those blokes out of Oasis.
In most bouts of male bonding
there's a bit of bruise and belt,
But Stanley had a Stanley knife
that made it's present felt.
Fists and blows may break your nose
but blades can kill another.
Now Stanley has no Stanley knife,
And Stanley has no brother.
EXHIBIT 176. THE SEVERED ARMS OF JOHN MERIT
See here the arms of a murderer,
That float in formaldehyde.
The finest pair of murdering arms,
That you have ever spied.
They used to know the elbows
Of a fellow called John Merit,
Who took the life of mum and wife
But found he couldn't bare it.
And ran away to Germany,
Where to cure his pains,
He robbed the hangman of his work
By blowing out his brains.
The German cops called ours to say
that he'd cause no more harms.
The Met asked for his fingerprints.
The Germans sent his arms.
Just a misunderstanding?
Well, I have heard a rumour
These short arms of the law prove
there's a German sense of humour.