Street Scene

Stroll down any dusty thoroughfare
From Maida Vale to scruffy Shepherd’s Bush
They’ll ambush you on pavement then and there
Relieve you of your digits, prod and push.

Foot soldiers, armed with clipboards and ambition
Will tug at strings that tie the heart to purse
Their target: the conversion to commission
Of less-than-living wages as you curse.

The haves that make up half the knotty problem
Are touched for cash by those who live below
Embarrassed by their wealth, some may endure them
While others just ignore them as they go.

With one foot on the ladder of ascension
The other in the bucket of distress
They’ll tell you of the horrors one won’t mention
To try to hold attention and impress.

The passers-by whose means are independent
Whose social conscience privilege must prick
Are rarely found donating rent or pension
Confronted daily, skin must be quite thick.

While those who swallow pride and do the needful
Are debited directly for their pains
Their duty to society a creed. Full
Of charitable empathy and claims.

A kind parting

What summers I spend in the depths of your gaze
While the half hours tick past with a sigh
How cool is the breeze, yet how warm is this haze
As I watch my life, lonely, drift by

There I sit and I bask in the glow of your sun
In the chill of your evening mocks
And I love you with all of my heart every morn’
So I suffer your slights and your shocks

‘Tis in vain and I know it, your heart is aflame
With the gas-lit by some other spark
And I see nothing here for me but future pain
As I talk to myself in the dark

Try to speak me some sense to this dull wit of mine
I will do what I must to survive
For to keep up my status through your frosty clime
One can barely call ‘being alive’.

So my mind is made up – without heed of my heart
And the tears join my smile on the floor
I must put them both back, though it may not be smart
For I’ll not hurt my love,
My one precious love
This only true love?
As I slip out the door.

A portrait of the artist from memory

The langorous lids, drooping softly over his twinkling, tired eyes, and that mischievous grin, wryly twisting the lips as his tongue darts out to enter the silent debate.

How did I ever stand a chance? With one plaintive eyebrow I had lost the argument, all thoughts of resistance winging their way to hardier climes.

He looks up, and I feel my heart leap into my mouth, ready to fall at his feet. What a world I find in that face, one glance and I am forever undone.

Oh how I both bless and rue the day I ever laid eyes on you.