London Lady

Coloured mirrors with glass angels
A lady in topaz curls a tequila
Shes waiting for a gentleman
In his bag a secrect contract
She waits in silk gloves
With a black feathered hat
As men pass and catch their breath
Society seems sickly
Exhausted paint screams on walls
Shadows creep into half full glasses
Of bar rats with opened shirts

He is late, friendly in unfriendly in London
‘and will you do this for me?’
She asks with knitting needle nerves
The contract demands a signature
And she signs, exactly, precisely
Hands over an envelope
The man nods and leaves

Outside the homeless make a desperate
Lunge for money
She brushes them off
Not today
Does not want anymore taken from her
She has already paid a price
Soho slips round her like an old raincoat
Hustlers chicken step the street
Looking for the golden touch
Crack heads turn old in underground carparks
She knows what there is to know

Fast away on the tube
But not before seeing
A blonde, thick dark mascara
Crying into a handbag
A large black girl in bad clothes
Bullying passers by,
A shrivelled face rent boy
Pleading for a cigarette
‘go on love please’
Faces hung in stale tube air
Old masters paintings
Tongues shoot conversation into silver bullets

Train
Thin woman discuss mortgages
A blonde chav says
‘theres a party in my pants later,
I’m very good at what i do’
Her blue eye in profile looks empty, empty
Army men talk of surveillance
Its the breath, the beat of old London

*
At Saatchi and Saatchi
Two white plastic squares
Greet the visitor
It is the new sculpture
Smelling of anaesthetic
We are old before our time

Silent readers in parks
Men who stare in embankment doorways
Waiting for the goldheels of opportunity
Electric neon drivels on shop windows
Models are available
Ahmed plans a riot

She looks for an opium den
In china town
To take away the bitterness
And constant city motion
A little hunger for a fantasy
An experience
Not formulated commercialised
Not on x factor
Ends up in a bookshop in greenwhich
Just for a while
Heaviness lifts
There is more than plain faces with ponytails
Denim mini skirts, screaming kids

There are others
Leading a double lives
And maybe one day
She will meet one
In coloured mirrors with glass angels.

25/04/2010 y.zelestine