The city runs forever
The city runs forever
Pushing its boundaries
Where once it stopped
Gathering its finery
Holding itself against intrusion
The incursion
Of a floodplain
The frugal winter
The setting sun
The Ides of Middlemarch
Where the old schools
Taught a different text
The runes of ages past
Clinging to convention,
As inevitability
Became a watchword
For resurrectionists
The tenacity of progress
The domes of old churches
The roofs of broken buildings
The soul repositories
Of a nation’s worth
The entrance to another world
Measured in
Saffron, spice and sugar
Street names
East India Dock Road
Jamaica Lane,
Reference points
To the bygones of history
The passing of industry
Rusted old ships laid up
On barnacle-encrusted mudbanks
New ships
Lie at anchor
Beyond the Thames Barrier
Waiting for the tide to turn
Their way.
The sun is reflected
Off glass towers
Guiding the way home
Like a nineteenth-century lighthouse
Clinging to a rockpile
A clifftop
A harbour wall
Manmade devices
That come and go
As the tide of progress
Ebbs and flows
Inching a little bit further
Every day.