Central London’s daytime northern skyline seems

dominated by a silhouetted

fretwork of cranes. From Bankside, on the south bank

of the Thames, I count, across the river,

west and east of St Pauls, twenty four.

The sun sets through them, leaves only their red

warning lights seemingly hanging in the air,

diminished by the white brilliance of blocks

of multi-storied offices empty

of people. Beneath them rats run freely –

along the littered gutters, past the homeless

curled up on cardboard in doorways.  Over there

is Eliotland, Tom’s ‘Unreal city.

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge.

I had not thought death had undone so many’.

Though the poet is no longer in Lloyds

counting house on Leadenhall Street,

his illusive city is extant despite

the absence of fog, despite the Blitz, despite

the property speculation, the terrorist attacks

at Fishmongers’ Hall and on London Bridge.

Low tide exposes narrow pebbled beaches strewn

with discarded plastic – and folk searching

for the trivia of the past. Above them

the fretwork of cranes turns.