Emotion recollected in tranquillity

don't do it for me:

see the river Brent courses,

and see the people flow,

all kinds and conditions

in rain and sun and snow.

 

You might know

the greenman in kingsbury,

who abhors the national front,

wanders in kew gardens

and sometimes has a punt.

 

There's westminster traitors

brixton dreadlocks edged with hats

disputes in willesden factories

and spats in flats.

 

The four skins

play the tavern

the traffic's at a halt

another bloody suicide

as usual, at fault.

 

An expert in geography.

routemastering around

in Kilburn town they're up

while in Maida Vale they're down.

 

In the Cricklewood tavern

on the colour TV

the death of a British soldier

in 1973.

 

In St John’s Wood,

the staid placidity of money

predominates

 

decade after decade

opening time

never ever late;

the chime

of the clock

at Lords

opens the gate

to the hallowed turf

of kensal green

cemetery.

 

While in South Ken

the noveau riche

keep doing it again.

 

The chimes of Big Ben

roll up the thames to the sea

through the marshes of essex

through the famed Marshalsea.

 

While iIn Wandsworth town

I hang around

and drink and spit and frown

at all these external states:

 

dates, times, affairs,

were nothing to

young Johnny Keats,

the world at his feet,

on Hampstead Heath.

 

So soon to be dead

yet in his head:

St Agnes Eve

ay, ages long ago

and all the beauty

and all the truth

that ever was

 

lost in a London fog

or buried under snow

ringing out, clear as day

through times, through tears:

to cancel false hopes

and scatter real fears.

.