Cardiac Ward, St. Thomas'
Walk south across Westminster Bridge.
In the recovery room, eight floors up, looking
down at that mighty poet’s heart,
yours is a view that could never have been his:
gothic Houses dead ahead fill
the double glazing – more panoramic
than all those sauce bottle labels
giving the lie to tower block sentinels,
chimneys, cranes, aerials, lorries,
taxis, buses, and splash-brash hoardings.
Awaiting prognosis, you never reach
saturation point, window-gazing is all –
Big Ben, Houses of Parliament flying
the warning flag, Danger, Men at Work.
A jet lets rip a silent V sign;
gold-struck weather vanes – redundant
now that ancient St. Thomas is modern –
would seek a direction these people ignore,
floor upon floor, the Thames plying liquid
history at uniform, high-rise feet.
Your destination – as yet unknown –
here, at the hub of things, where trees
compete with stone and concrete, branches bare –
like your veins shot with dye for all to see –
arteries by-passed by technology,
life on hold until the programme’s done.
A ferry announcing A Tour Through History
to Where Time Begins, does a U-turn
at Westminster Bridge, leaving you trawling
for perspectives beyond tomorrow.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The