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.
By David Selzer