Standing silently upon a tall building’s top floor,
a man stares out surveying a city he knows well, or at least once did.
He sees broken pieces sold off cheap board by board,
and strikingly similar pieces, gleaming and sold abroad, not far from Eastcheap.
He thinks of old London Bridge being sold to America,
and sky-high London Bridge apartments to Qatar.
And old Arnold Circus and what it would be to do what they did before, just a bit differently.
Or perhaps while they’re at it,
turn Soho back to its alliance with Carnaby Street,
aligning interest with interest, and losing one or the other.
Never rebuild: rebuilding needs demolition.
Only regenerate: regeneration is encouraged evolution.
Always development: a clear progression.
Do not list your petty grievances, such as history, or tradition.
I stand aboard a sailing City, soaring along on its coat tails
and the top hats of the skeletons of the pretenders to a throne
left dusty by the end of the class war.
“Aspire, my boy. Perspire and you’ll see.”
Or grip on very tight,
squeeze with all of someone else’s might,
on uplight lamp lit night time,
mood music moving moths and men,
to thirty quid bottles of prosecco which
when guzzled fast enough,
and shared amongst just so many,
turned upside down in the ice bucket
and returned to the student waitress
(pinching squeezing – again)
leering at the mirror sheen
of a black and white body,
looks quite a lot like champagne.
London,
sold by the piece and stripped
of its tranquility or sliding out of touch with buried depths
and growing neighbourly resentments,
continues its rapacious devouring,
guided by the dread hand
of the man at the top of a tall building.
He watches, utterly satisfied and absolutely not.
And We watch him.
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