London

The city is fused, a powerpack throbbing,
with no way back to quietness,
for in truth none of this is as it was,
as cars and bicycles recycle the dust
swarms of pedestrians power-walk to work.

From above, ants swarm across Millennium Bridge
to the Strand, from Waterloo too, vehicles
of every kind invade via London Bridge, far from
falling, a monument to the country’s durability,
strength, this bridge has seen conflict, and survived.

So into next year and a blue bicycle system is now
in place, London becoming more like Amsterdam,
greener and less noisy, easier to think on feet,
though with one filthy river flowing through,
not infiltrated by leafy canals with happy boaters.

As the Century progresses, change is taking place
though the young rich things continue to prance
around Belgravia as though it is theirs,
in open-topped cars vibrating with bad hip-hop
and R & B, dressed in Armani, Gucci and Versace.

Will social revolution happen, or will it get worse?
Surrounding Home Counties supply Westminster,
the Old Bailey with barristers, Canary Wharf with
the next batch of fat cats, Belgravia with
new members of Pratts, as the East End sits back.

Forced to hold on to jobs which fail to satisfy,
the masses creak along underpaid, regardless,
blue-collared, faceless, but not nameless,
and not without minds, sharpened by poverty,
in observing a rich clearly working half-days only.

‘Will the riots come back?’ some wonder, though
these appear distant tremors, the City’s underbelly
exposed that night, blind chaos ensuing,
nothing to be done about thousands of angry
young men and women, denied by birthright.

The City continues serenely into the future, as people
browse pages of million-pound apartments in a brochure.

JRTF

24/09/14