London Like a Flower ( A song)

The points are changed the lines divide for Cannon Street or Waterloo
Laptops,smartphones, tablet’s glint in sunlight and the morning dew
And then alight for Bishops gate, the Corn exchange or London wall
A caffeine cup, a starting note as each to each begin to call

And London like a flower draws the nectar eaters in
Through farmland factory housing crushed down cars
Past humming lines and narrow boats in redeveloped dock
To trading rooms engravings’ office real estate and bars

And who are you who walk the streets descend the stairs and disappear
I follow on to Billingsgate and there we share a chocolate bar
And turning then I caught a glimpse of someone passing, bright and new
For this I venture out each day with cabbage white and chalk hill blue

The city is a siren cry a solo on a drum
A dog fox call as ring tone, a guitar
A power plane a distant chant a sculpted metal gate
Embalmed and reassuring as a nettle on a scar

The fall and rise of flood and tide from seven springs and cold north sea,
Leaves’ metal for detectors here and weeds that feed the bumble bee
We search the reach and sandy beach, by creeks and streams when waters low
For mottled stones, clay pipes, old bones, and silk cocoons where pupae grow.

And London as a leprechaun deceives and re-appears
As cactus, dove or scavenging black crow
Basement pulse of music echo’s down the narrow path
And footsteps beat the time on cobbled stone

There’s hints and tints as days turn into evenings indecisively
There’s oysters brought on sandal wood, a bitter scent of ambergris
And all around is fast and vast with flux a constant currency
As flowers glow and ebb and flow in pattern, brand and jewelry

These office blocks of candle-wax will melt in summer’s heat
A hashtag sign is carved into a tree
An olive branch is headline news where pit-bulls snarl and bark
These symbols of peripheries that now seem home to me

In talk of if and when and how, your smile replies or points the way
We pass  the time with Spanish wine and wonder if its time to stay
Embroidered petals lie beside discarded skins of him or her;
As painted ladies spread their wings or lacewing feast in gossamer

The city as permanganate dissolves in maple tea
And complex oxides crystallise and grow
Mists condensing slowly in the evenings yellow light
Melt shadows cast by towers into faces down below

We walk the path beside the berths of boats that stay in Wharfs and Quays
There’s sails unset, a figurehead just sleeps and dreams of distant seas
Anchor’s black mark winding track from Saviors Wharf to Albany
As dragons iridescent flight will mark a new found territ’ry

London is a frosted web a fall of autumn snow
A springtime in the shadow of a plane
A tramp who sings to balconies in scented summer parks
As winter insects hibernate and spider’s climb’s again

On Lambeth Bridge we lean and watch the swollen waters running through
A time to think and plan ahead and talk of everyone we knew
And as we spoke of distant times we lost our way or stayed too long
And wandered then through parking lots where Vipers Bugloss hangs its tongue

But now these streets describe parabolas and angles twist and churn
And you bring geometric evenings round for tea
The tracks that lead from Maidenhead and change at Acton South
Define the lines I follow east and everyone we see

At junction points the trains delayed and through the dusty window pane
I see you buy a silver rose whose folds will hold some other’s name
And you resembled, standing there, someone once I thought I knew,
A forward jolt and rolling stock crush willow-herb and feverfew

City children sharpen teeth on rusting metal frames
And vampire cards will call them from their play
I’ve moved to other lodgings now and watch the faces flow
And flicker through the street-lamp pools then fade and die away

And then I see you once again descent the stair to catch a train
I hear the sound of underground as links are pulled to break a chain,
A humming noise is all around of flying creature now set free
I pick the wings of biting things that like confetti cover me

The town is now a metronome that drowns out other sounds,
A mermaids tongue sprout’s liverwort and fern
The rain and lime form stalactites as magpie feathers drift
To streams that lead to gully traps and to the tides return

We’ve eaten all our chocolate bars and now the wrappers clog the drain
You’ve left to wander orange groves in distant towns and other trains
But I shall look beyond these streets for something that I used to know
And follow lines less predefined where parsley, vetch and cowslip grow

And London like a flower draws the nectar eaters in
Through farmland factory housing crushed down cars
Past humming lines and narrow boats in redeveloped dock
To trading rooms engraving office real estate and bars