The New London Poets

7/29/2019 The New London Poets

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The New London Poets

Passages in quotation without permission from:

Olympic Park Compulsory Purchase Order; Olympic Delivery Agency, 2007The Peasants' Revolt, May-June 1381; Sir John Froissart.


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hackney cut

Seabirds dot the banks of the reservoir, gulls spot the sky

which opens out above Walthamstow Marshes, one-hundred and eighty degreesof blue wonder, gull-spotted, louring clouds

Development in the area bound:

to the north by the Eastway (part), A12 East Cross Route (part) the River Lea, the

northern and eastern boundary of East Marsh, New Spitalfields Market, Ruckholt

Road and Temple Mill Lane;

to the east by the Temple Mills Lane, the Lea Valley Line Overground Railway Line,

land to the east of Leyton Road, Angel Lane, part of the Great Eastern Line until

Stratford Regional Station, the Lea Valley Overground Railway Line and a section of

the northern part of the Stratford development site;

to the south by part of the northern boundary of the Stratford City development site,

the southern section of the rail loop which connects the North London Line

and the Great Eastern Line, the main line railway and land on the eastern banks of the

Waterworks River, the Greenway (part), High Street Stratford (A11), Rick Roberts

Way and including land to the east of Canning Road, west of the North London Line,

and south and west of West Ham Station, the land between Bow Back River and

Barbers Road and part of the Great Eastern Line;

to the west by the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach Road (part) the River

Lea and the River Lea Navigation (Hackney Cut) and land on the western bank of the

River Lea to the east of the A12 East Cross Route.

Rails abut the canal on raised, cobbled piers

that threaten to unseat the beautiful blonde on her red bicycle

braving tramtracks and weather and all.

Coots feet flap lazily, shake water from beaded grass blades,

been-in-the-bath-too-long feet; woodsmoke from canal boatsscents the air, reflects in the oil-stained, litter strewn surface.

Two Graffitists compete: Sweet Toof versus ODC,I reserve judgment, allow the Olympic Devilry Authority to decide.


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an anecdote:

one of the few occasions I visited a Thursday evening reading at the CalderBooks Shop on the Cut, Waterloo, I heard an actor - plummy, precise - reading

Beckett, which was it, one of the later, the last? A Beckett prose narrative - awoman in a room, in a house, in a bleak place - rocks, bare earth and grass, andthough he was putting things into this room - a key on a nail by the door, atrapdoor, I suppose a chair, a shawl, this woman, it wouldnt be hard to find outwhich piece it was, although he was putting things into this room, necessarythings - floorboards, whitewash, walls, doors, a door, windows or a window,it seemed to me he was emptying it - a man writing a woman in an empty room -removing, trying to remove everything from an empty room, begrudging thepresence of anything unnecessary, but stopping short, stopping short of the void.So that everything in there was itself, only itself, unreferential. An amazingdisplay of emptying, yet impossible, having put pen to paper impossible to emptythat room. To empty a room of itself.

I must have nodded-off for a while, I woke gently near the end of the monologue,not attracting too much attention to myself. It ended, as these things do, end.

The audience then proceeded, tastelessly, to interrogate those few objects left,allowed to remain in the room. I hate to put this down - the nail four nails, the keyChrist, the woman poor Samuels mother, interrogated, they interrogated a poordead mans mother in an empty room, added tons of verbiage, interpretation, toa beautifully empty room, forced a world round a wilderness, defiled a place asbare and necessary as the moon,

as I am almost at risk of doing myself!


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hilly fields blues

i) Im in the park where you burned your skin

so badly it peeled off, the flakes

stuck to the sheets by our sweatyour skin so white underneath

the shed scales dissolved into our flesh

and, mixed with other secretions

adhered to everything. Thus you are

generous even in adversity.

ii) Im in the park where we met

after your prolonged absence -

an episode - I was surprisedat how old you looked, your breasts

loose under someone elses grey t-shirt

your hair and skin dry, after

waiting for phone calls

avoiding your empty flat

(where I guessed dust settled

things sweated, rotted and shot

in your kitchen) when

your phone calls were unreturnable

your whereabouts unknown

your health - I assumed - fragile

your skin burned.

At first I didnt recognise you.

iii) your nape I recognised

beneath bob-cut hair

as one I have loved. Without

recognising you, or that we followed you

and your son, in the High Street,knowing that I had loved.


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the invention of the wheel

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the London Development Agency (the Agency) on 2 March

2007 made a general vesting declaration under section 4 of the Compulsory Purchase

(Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 (the Act) vesting the land described in the Schedule to this

notice (the Land) in themselves as from the end of the period of 28 days from the date onwhich the services of the notices required by section 6 of the Act is completed.

The Agency will in due course tell you the date on which the service of the notices was

completed.

On the first day after the end of the period referred to in the first paragraph of this notice (the

Vesting Date) the Land, together with the right to enter upon and take possession of it, will

vest in the Agency.

on the slate tiled roofof the beach at Penrhyn

sharp outlined by its own shadow

the wheel awaits its discovery

Also, on the Vesting Date the Acts providing for compensation will apply as if, on the date on

which the general vesting declaration was made (namely 2 March 2007), a notice to treat had

been served on every person whom the Agency could have served such a notice (other than

any person entitiled to an interest in the Land in respect of which such a notice had actually

been served before the Vesting Date and any person entitled to a minor tenancy or a longtenancy which is about to expire. These expressions are defined in Appendix A to this

notice).

a lone pigeon follows its dice-roll

of tossed olive-oil soaked crust

If the Land includes any land in which there is a minor tenancy or a long tenancy which is

about to expire, the right of entry will not be exercisable in respect of that land unless, after

serving a notice to treat in respect of that tenancy, the Agency having served on every

occupier of any of the land in which a tenancy subsists a notice stating that

down the road cross the river back home

not for all the gelded cannabis in Kent


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Appendix A

Minor tenancy means a tenancy for a year or from year to year, or any lesser interest.

Long tenancy which is about to expire in relation to a general vesting declaration, means a

tenancy granted for an interest greater than a minor tenancy, but having on the vesting date a

period still to run which is not more than the specified period (that is to say, such period,

longer than one year, as may for the purposes of this definition be specified in the declaration

in relation to the land in which the tenancy subsists).

deliver me from property

and from the letting of property for money

In determining for the purposes of this subsection what period a tenancy still has to run on thevesting date it shall be assumed -

(a) that the tenant will exercise any option to renew the tenancy, and will not

exercise any option to terminate the tenancy, then or thereafter available

to him,

(b) that the landlord will exercise any option to terminate the tenancy then or

thereafter available to him.

deliver me from property

and from the letting of property for money


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camden head

The clock says six-thirty

zero hour, where the weight

of the hands draws them, defaultsetting, where and when I wait

always on time.

The brass plaque demands: no

smoking at the bar. The customers

careless of this scatter a snow

of ash about their feet, and around them

smoke rises in sunshine.

On Friday morning the rebels, who lodged in the square of St Catherines, before the Tower,

began to make themselves ready. They shouted much and said, that if the King would not

come out to them, they would attack the Tower, storm it, and slay all who were within. The

King, alarmed at these menaces, resolved to speak with the rabble; he therefore sent orders for

them to retire to a handsome meadow at Mile End, where, in the summertime, people go to

amuse themselves, at the same time signifying that he would meet them there and grant their

demands.

Coot circles flash in the green

pool and webbed feet float

a moment before disappearing

pushing for the weed-

webbed jungle.

And the pale sunshine

from the coots green mirror

sparks concentric ripples

as the bird does as it ought to:

coot circles.

The New London Poets

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