Ridley Road Market.

Ridley Road Market.

There were always rats

Scratting for scraps

Even on cold mornings

Fighting each other for the right

To plunder from under the meat stall

Where the tarmac runs wet with the blood

Of raw beef and mutton

The woman who lived along the hall,

A few doors away,

When we lived on Holly Street

Which is no longer standing,

Thank heaven

(I wonder where all the roaches have gone?)

And had six children with several men

Who had all come and gone,

Some of them to Pentonville,

Made a doozy,

The best I ever tasted

She was a good woman but too trusting,

By half.

It is a different world

But Ridley Road is still a market

Rich with the sound of laughter

Hot spice and root vegetables.

Stoke Newington has changed

With gentrification,

I wonder if it is a safer place at midnight,

As the business classes,

Bigwigs in financial services

Plunder all the desirables

A number of Haredi Jews in Stamford Hill

Are being forced to sell,

House prices are too high

For the younger families

Canvey Island is a promised land

For a new beginning.

I hope they find what they want

Without antagonising the locals

It wouldn’t take much

From what I remember

They too were a close-knit community.

It was always a hard place

To make a living.

The ground is rock hard

In winter

A sharp frost bites,

Taking chunks out of uncovered cheeks

As icy winds whip over the Thames

Hung with hail, roiling with fog

Or wet with mist.

Big fat rats have the teeth and claws to find a toehold

Wherever they pitch up

Dogging humanity

Plundering their leftovers

Carrying disease and discord

As they scurry in a hurry

To survive

Even through the harshest of times

A nuclear winter be damned

There will always be Ridley Road

To warm the cockles.