tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8928092328002621993.post5237734821796579511..comments2014-07-10T04:11:35.224+01:00Comments on Deptford Se8ker: Open House 2008 - Woolwich BarracksSE8KERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04006298204715453210noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8928092328002621993.post-76265585273272663472009-05-31T12:11:11.599+01:002009-05-31T12:11:11.599+01:00Red jacket in SE8
Red jacket on.
To the river, ...Red jacket in SE8<br /><br /><br />Red jacket on. <br />To the river, the cranes of Aragon Tower on the left<br />Past the new builds: Deptford's Neo Glasgow school.<br />On the second floor of post-tenement irony, soft grey bulk in a window<br />pressed against the glass, a woman holds her baby.<br />Pale dough cheek and winter glass. <br />A kiss in the frame of new builds, <br />Hope, and brushing her baby against her skin. Back wide and happy.<br /><br />Red jacket on.<br />Black boys kiss their teeth and sing low. <br />Don't understand the architectural hymn and make up their own <br />Praising space and acoustics of breeze blocks.<br /><br />Red jacket on.<br />I dream of bikes, of American beach bikes, of not being hungry.<br />By my side, wind dances on the curl of the river. <br />Water curls like 50s hair held neat by a grip. Moon high. Ripples combed. <br />Coiffure fetched up along with long stemmed pipes.<br />Narrative unfolds across on the opposite bank. <br />They should have left Canada Tower to its singular erection - <br />Now it's crammed uptight with short-arsed, square-shouldered bankers<br />And we have lost our vicarious view.<br /><br />Red jacket on <br />On my way to the place I have lived longest since . . .<br />The hoarding of the old tower block are graffited <br />But Deptford's new penthouse will be accessed from another county.<br />Beached. Fetched up, bloated corpse of council wretch. <br />Or hanging, swaying in the ancient breeze on Peninsula Way SE - Chip &pin. <br />‘D'you know your number?’<br /><br />Red Jacket on - plump with feathers, it keeps me warm while I dream of not being hungry. <br />White, middle-class woman in promising Deptford. Going home and dreaming of not being hungry.<br /><br />Deptford’s a whore. <br />Her eyes are smeared with boot polish from Canary Wharf’s nouveau shoeshine<br />And she’s coloured her hair bright business. <br />She smiles a lot, but her teeth, though bleached, are rotten. <br />Staggering away, then towards, she proffers a can or syringe, and bows low as I pass.<br />I can feel her sneer, because she knew Grinling Gibbons when he made voodoo dolls for the sailors <br />And Kit Marlow before he got an agent. And whispers: ‘Nothing ever gets better than it was.’ <br />So now has shares in Atavistic Gilt.<br /><br />Red Jacket on. <br />Smoothing nearer home. In Deptford Wharf, some<br />neighbours have turned their car on and are dancing to it. Stop. Noise off, sudden as lights.<br />Distant lullaby of sirens. Poverty, prospect, quick enterprise,<br />the washed-up rumours of European funding, all twist silently in the latch.<br />Final trickle of commuters from the ferry at S.E.16’s Greenland Pier,<br />spill like mercury from a broken barometer.<br />But they go the other way. <br />2005<br />Same applies. <br />BLUJAHAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10944517629347329241noreply@blogger.com