Smoky City

I couldn't help but think about it

It struck me how it might not always be wise to make sense
But rather to just be mindful of the process
And now you're twenty-something
It's all down there
By the elderly Thames
Where the crimson crane lights perforate the murky surface
And man was stepping through the smoky city

And we, walked
Along the 'cycle super-highway'
And wound up, wounded
In Stockwell, 1998
French birds on the N109
Under the weather but inside the feeling
Candlelight cast dappled reflections up the bowing walls
With a hundred year old horse-hair suspended in the void
And stretched across the blue evening as if in the pocket of some impossible dream
I couldn't quite trust it
Them vast shadows of moody buildings behind post-boxes and phone shops
Always gripped me
Almost in surprise
And we seldom reached
The East-End farrago

I mean, save for the shows
Birthdays and The Oslo
And the soft hissing of pool table lawns
All scheming amongst the proud purveyors of your finest Turkish beer
Exclusively, and strictly so
Safe, beneath sleeping Dalston
All blurred faces in the endless shuffle
The pigeons on your little Gothic church spires

And well
Everything had started to feel like I had been dishonest with myself, my entire life
And I wasn't sure if I'd ever work out why
That
Nostalgic
Pang
The squabbles at the bus stop
The pallets and the plywood
Rainbow bridge and the Babbling Brook
Getting mugged at the roller disco and
Breaking into the Bank of England
South West Two
And how you act so dark
In Max Roach park

But I still miss you