Category: Urban

Cecily Census

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pigeons
Pigeons by Tim Dennell

Cecily Census

“Let’s count the pigeons !”  That’s just what she said,
As she pointed out a trio pecking pavement up ahead.
One was grey and one was blue and one was sandy brown –
“I bet we get to fifty by the other side of town !”
So hand-in-hand, we kept the tally,
Up the street and down the alley.

“Let’s count dandelions !” another time she said,
As she pointed out a golden host within a council bed.
Some were buds and some were clocks and some were full of roar –
“I bet we find a hundred round behind the superstore !”
So side-by-side, we kept on counting,
Till we reached the mouldy fountain.

“Look at all the wrigglers !” on a rainy day she said,
As she pointed out the molluscs that had made us watch our tread.
Some were black and some were brown and some were rusty nails –
“I’ll count all the sluggies up, and you can count the snails !”
So one-by-one, we kept the score,
But I forget who had the more.

“Look at all the people !” on a sunny day she said,
As she pointed to the crowds that loitered while the man was red.
Some were old and some were young and some were inbetween –
“I bet we see a dozen more before the beeps and green !”
So back-to-back, against the crush,
We totted up the lunchtime rush.

“Look at all the pigeons !”  just the other day I said,
As I pointed out a posse crowding round a crust of bread.
Some were fat and some were thin…but none were worth her gaze –
“Oh dad, you always say that when we meet on access days.”
So that was that, no longer fun –
Our number-taking days were done.

Nil-Nil

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Photo by Denniz Futalan on Pexels.com

Nil-Nil

Defenders – nobody likes you –
Nothing but bouncers, bunch of blockheads
Stamping on the fuse of the strikers’ rockets
Petty bullies, the whole ground spites you –
Cheering for the brave centre-forwards in attack,
They’re hoping they can sparkle as they net one in the back.

Defenders – champions of ‘nope’,
Flat-footed jobsworths, the crowd has made you deaf
As they jeer and curse and hate you, more than any ref.
Sneering killjoys, crushing our hope
To keep the boring status quo –
This is business, it ain’t a show.

Professional athletes are entertainers, pure and simple. If you want us to pay you to perform, you’d better bloody perform ! My solution to discouraging goaless draws and make them pull their fingers out ? Simple – if both teams start the match with no no goals and no points and end the match with no goals, then surely they should end it with no points between them either.

As as for cup games, none of this can’t-be-arsed keepball until penalties – if they end in a draw then both teams should be eliminated ! Perhaps their place could be taken by the losing team i that round who managed to score the most goals. Alternatively, at full time we could enter golden goal territory, and the game doesn’t end until we get one ! I don’t care how long it takes, or how knackered they get, they can’t leave until they remember why they’re there in the first place. We can even make it more likely to come sooner than later with a couple of special rules – first, any injured player must leave the pitch for treatment, and then is not allowed back on. Similarly, any first yellow card in this time is a walker – maybe not in terms of ongoing punishment, but ceertainly in terms of this match. And finally, the ref needs to keep shoppages to a minimum and keep the ball in play.

After all, we all know how differently a team plays when they know they have to win as opposed to know they just haave to not-lose.

Silent Witnesses

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Silent Witnesses

Halfway between the Tube and the office,
I pass them each morning, sat on a front-garden wall.
I pass them on neither a side street or high street –
They watch us commuters, but we barely see them at all.

On always the same wall (perhaps it’s their own wall) –
With placards and Bibles, but no blood and brimstone, they sit.
I guess they’re a couple, I guess they’re retired,
But what do I know ?- we haven’t yet talked, I admit.

For I have no int’rest in what they are selling,
Though they’re barely selling, and no-one is buying it seems.
But better by far their quiet shop-window
Than Loud-Hailer Preacher, who stands by the station and screams.

Auto-Desire

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Auto-Desire

I remember watching the cars go by
From the back seat of my Dad’s Cavalier –
A rep-mobile, that would sometimes change
Into a Sierra, or something near.

I could name them all, down the motorway,
From the back seat of my Dad’s works’ Rover
By make and model, and sometimes trim,
And dreamt of driving them all twice over.

But when I left home with a job,
It didn’t come with its own Passat –
And I was living in digs in London,
Without a garage, and that was that.

Besides, there’s never any parking,
And what there is will costs me loads –
And if the Tube is crowded, well,
Then you should see the roads !

But still I eye the kerbside cars
Beyond the pay of my nine-to-five –
And fantasise which one I’d have,
If I’d only learned to drive.

Until my sensible shoes recall
The fossil fuels and rusting hulks –
And the boy inside with the brum-brum dreams
Just sits in the back seat and sulks.

Suburban Spruces

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ChristmasTree.16Q.NW.WDC by Elvert Barnes

Suburban Spruces

At the meeting of the streets
And the corners of the road,
So grows an unexpected copse
No seed has ever sowed.
It sprouts up overnight
Like a fungus on the make –
This squatter on the pavement,
Brings the Winter in its wake.
Its trees have all blown over,
And its needles all have shed
To the gutters and the breezes,
Until even these have fled.
Then suddenly one morning
We shall find the corner bare,
Save the grey of frost and concrete
And the chill upon the air.

Mongers

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Playing Marbles and Rag & Bone Man by Steven Scholes

Mongers

We used to be just simple merchants –
Iron, fish, and cheese,
And jack-of-produce costermen –
The traders in the bare necessities.
But now we’re only spoken off
As rumour, scare, and war –
We’re jack-the-lads of shadowmen,
Now hawking abstract concepts door-to-door.

Pollarding

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pollard

Pollarding

Last Autumn, all your leaves came down –
Just like they must each year.
But seeing them when dead and brown,
And unlike all the rest in town,
Is just too late, I fear.
I should have seen them all when green !
But now I wondered – what tree had we here ?

Big, they were, the largest, broadest leaves
In all this urban wood
And finger-lobed, for holding-up the eaves,
And poking now from gutter-sleeves
About the neighbourhood.
My thought was fig, with leaves that big,
Yet far too gropey to do Eve much good.

But I, alas, might never even know,
For once your leaves were shed –
The shears came out and brought you low,
As all your branches had to go
And left your trunk for dead.
No tree could sleep with cuts so deep –
You surely won’t be rising out of bed…

April was well underway before
Your twigs began to sprout.
And then, such tiny hands they bore,
As ev’ry day a couple more
To prove you yet were stout.
At this rate Fall would claim them all
Ere half the sun-grab hands were even out !

But then I looked a little lower,
Where some suckers crowd the roots –
While your wounds may heal the slower,
Round your foot you’re still a grower
Shooting out a dozen shoots.
Succour feeders, weed succeeders,
Sucking sunshine into fruits.

May saw plenty spindly upper twigs –
A hedgehog on each bough,
To carry leaves, so close, so big,
As if they’d snap right off the rig,
But seemed to cling on anyhow.
As June grew late, they put on weight
As fleshy forearms now.

By summer, something stirred in me,
A memory about the bumps
That swell no larger than a pea –
They’re really next’s year’s fruits-to-be.
But here, of course, there were no lumps –
For what life stirred was secateured
Down to your barest stumps.

So will I have to wait another year
To see your fruits in Fall ?
I wonder if I’ll still be here…
You will, of course, that much is clear –
You’re bursting branches big and small.
Unless your twigs are lacking figs
Because you never were a fig at all…

Suburban Antares

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opposite of mars
Image crested in Stellarium

Suburban Antares

Right at the bottom of the Zodiac, he lies –
At the bottom of the garden, at the bottom of the sky –
Barely rising high enough above the privet hedges,
As he’s hugging the horizon – just a hello and goodbye.
Battling through the light-infested night (plus those long evenings),
Peeking out from skies that are perpetually grey –
From the top floor of a tower block, I bet he looks a treat,
But for us, he’s always hidden by the roofs across the way.

Cucumber Time

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pile of cucumbers
Photo by Matthias Zomer on Pexels.com

Cucumber Time

Summer days, ah Summer days,
When the world is out-of-town.
The Commons and Courts are resting,
And the news is old and brown.
When gherkins are smooth and longer,
And the sunbeams are making them glow,
Then just ask Jack and Algernon
How quick the sandwiches go !

Blown on the Windrush

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Blown on the Windrush

Oh London, my London !  Forever so fond,
Yet I heard of the rumours of places beyond –
For further than ring roads and suburban stations
Apparently lies there a wealth of far nations.
How greatly I dreamed of the boat and the train
And the tropical sun, now washed out by your rain.
For my riches are poorly, my cupboards are bare,
My travelling stalled upon your thoroughfare.

Oh London, my London !  You felt my distress.
And pitied my yearnings to quit your address.
For penned by your broadways, I longed to escape –
So you widened my cage from the Steppes to the Cape,
From Hong Kong to Lisbon, from Cairo to Cork,
From L.A. to Delhi, from Auckland to York.
With bright lights and glamours, and chiming Bow Bell,
You brought me the world, and their families as well !

Growing up in the boring countryside, I’ve always liked the idea of immigration – not for myself, far too lazy, but for the rest of the world to do the hard work of coming to me.  Though I guess I am a kind-of immigrant into London, and this was written soon after my arrival as I was still marvelling.  Looking back, it’s a bit dum-de-dum, but that pretty much summed-up my provincial output at the time.  What my poems needed was a splash of colour, and London was just the place for that.