In Camden Town

Puneal skin and the distant cry of birds.
The rumbling thunder of the road.
And builders beginning:
shaking tools, steel against steel.

Saturday Morning in Camden Town.
Life rising from the ruins.
No quite now from the Road.
People passing from their far off places.

Wood Green, Turnpike Lane,
Manor House, Finsbury Park, Arsenal.
Holloway Road and Cally Road,
then change at Kings Cross.

Bens shoes lined-up
on a white wooden floor.
Auntie sleeping,
god knows where.

The motor scooter whine.
Loud unseasonal bangs.
When I woke I was somewhere else,
but now I’m in Camden Town.