its back turned on old Bedlam
our house creaks and croaks
with Elephantine memories
muttering through winds
reminiscing feet and voices
sheltered for generations
one of the last
of the short-life havens
we straggling artists making way
for municipal makeover
after twenty jumbled years
thriving and saving
so much paint splashed into life
stories sketched and stretched
dear cheap wine rouging faces
across tea-stained tables
this room a distillery of jazz
next door a loom of lyrics
sharings and reckonings
tiffs and assignations
gifts and finds of jetsam woodwork
unwashed crocks and surprise banquets
sofas and underwear
slow green baths in candlelight
private view postcards
blue jeans and incense
bookshelves Riley the retinas
Indian rugs flicker and pucker
Blue-tack bubbles on walls of snow
unmatched quilts buzz in our sleep
the attic harbours dead-nerve wiring
beetles watch over us
forgotten bargains huddle cardboard
failed portraits slump
in the twinkle-slate dark
imagining the silent vinyl
reading Darwin with bees and brambles
the apple harvest
a twitch of squirrels
the vain prowess of cats
yard rain perfume
radios bowing to blackbirds
blinking at Boeings
as grubby London bricks
half-heartedly bounce glare
onto a blistered table
whose recycled floor-boards
only ants now trust
this house of unsquare windows
and icebox winters
of antique stove and moulting walls
now relinquishes the old ways
as we re-draw our lives
in steel-framed apartment.
© Paul Taylor 2004
When Southwark Council abolished its shortlife programme, it ended an invaluable era of cheap housing for those not on the property treadmill. Thanks go out to housing co-ops everywhere for perservering.
An online recording of this poem can be found on the NEON site.
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