Straight Outta Woolwich

Cherry

By Justin Tuijl

Tue, 28 Jan 2025
  • 169 reads
5 comments
 

This was a re-visit to my non-fiction of Caffeinated in Woolwich

you and I walk out to the Thames bank
the coffee shop had pumped us with caffeine
for us to observe the water
boats, birds, the ferry

across the bank a park
green oasis
the sugar factory up the river
industry down

our phones are quiet
and we chat about the river
about the boats
about lost loves

we walk easily towards the ferry
soon the over half a century year old boat
rumbles around us
as we sit on the wooden benches

it repeats the journey across
a worn furrow in the water
as it has done thousands of times
as many others will do

this journey, repeated
not you and I
but others and others
many many times, again and again

(2017)

Note: since this poem the three old ferries were retired and there are now two new ones. I've not been on the new ones and I live a long way from London now.

Certificate U
Poem
Justin's Poems
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Sooz006 on

This is beautiful Justin. My favourite part is the mention of the sugar factory because it instantly ignited another sense. I used to drive past a factory that made crisps in Manchester and the smell was divine. 

I was smelling warm candy floss fro the rest of the poem. Beautiful. 

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Completely agree with Sooz. It's a wonderfully descriptive piece, and the final verse gives it a real timelessness. A pleasure to read.

Submitted by celticman on

a worn furrow on the water, in which to burrow. wonderful. 

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

A beautiful evocative poem that I'm sure many will relate to.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

My old stomping ground has certainly changed a lot especially around the market and the polytechnic where I studied and got my L.R.I.C and went home in the evenings in a 122.  Saw Rod Stewart and the Steam Packet  in a pub long gone and Chuck Berry in the Granada (Carl Perkins and Little Richard too all for 40p)

Last time I was there was around 30 years ago when the Dartford crossing and M25 was totally blocked and I used the ferry to get to across the river ... probably took longer but it was great nostalgia (as this excellent poem is) even then it had changed so much I got lost.

You mentioned the ferries being old. I can just about remember the steam powered paddle ferries they replaced. My Grandad loved to take me on them. I think he got a bigger thrill than I did.

My grandad worked in the Arsenal all his life making shell cases and my dad for a little while when he left school.

You make the Woolwich sound so nice. Thank you/. The old place deserves that.