On my birthday the snow wind
bringing feathery rain, a fine dust
falling on the edge of crystal.
I take the grey road along the river
where pass lives sadder than yours, mine,
slow death in the tower blocks.
These are the Silvertown Blues,
Fight the Rich ghosting out
in concrete, by the flyover.
No one ever gets straight here.
The ego’s tale of itself is miserable,
nothing much happens but murder.
Yet that these wastes be repeopled
and the rich inherit, everyone’s
carved from the sour and floury air
of London’s residuary body,
filling with cranes and dust
and the racket of money being made,
and there’s nothing to say but to say
to myself Thou bone, brother bone. You old bone.
Down the Bendy Road to Cyprus and Custom House
where the new cities rise from the drawing-boards
and the ghosts-to-be of George in his Capri,
JoJo in her birthday suit drinking white wine with soda
fly in from Paris for the weekend. Later
they’ll gather with friends by the marina.
Later they’ll appreciate the view of the river.
Later they’ll jive to the mean mad dance of money
between the tower blocks over the runway
amongst the yachts already moored in the development.
What he calls her: my little pocket calculator
my fully portable my VDU my organiser my mouse
oh my filofax my cellnet my daisywheel.
What he dreams driving home at the wheel
on the brimming motorway: her electronics
the green screen of her underwear her digital display.
Oh my spreadsheet he groans in the night:
my modem my cursor lusting after her floppies
wanting her printout her linkup her entire database.