Look, Niobe comes… as beautiful as anger will let her be.
Mansion House, Monument, Cannon Street, Bank,
the electric underworld: carriages of wrists,
elbows, ripe armpits. Stand clear of the doors.
Words curve on all the walls. Last chance to see!
Five Stars, A Triumph! Pin-up faces peel.
Lear stares, his girls. He waits our flattery.
No phases of the moon for us. No sun
to mark the days. It’s all show: white light, glare.
At the edge of electrocution
corpse boys, corpse girls walk the tunnels
and halls: stale breath, bodies out of time,
they teach me the meaning of words:
frantic, fears, daughters, sons, tears, alone, gone.
St Pancras, Angel, Old Street, Moorgate. Bank.
St Pancras, do you ever hear our prayers?
Our prayers are escalators. Scala
sounds so classy, elevating, but handrails
are loops of black. Vinyl prayers spin on.
Covent Garden, Piccadilly, Leicester Square.
As far down as this world goes, I go down.
Staircases move up, topple out of sight,
metal waterfalls, but no one believes my tears.
It’s theatre-land. Everyone a busker here.
Michelle, ma belle. Dry your tears, I seh.
East. East. All gods arise in the east.
East Acton. East Finchley. East Cote. East Ham.
Back to the source, through the burial grounds
the Navvies bored, back beyond the dead.
Heaven’s the top of a stair.
Hell’s a blur, hot wind, an empty platform.