Redheaded boy on a Kilburn balcony
by AuldMiseryGuts (Member) - published: March 29, 2007
Word Count: 324 Word Bytes: 2806 Viewed: 697 times
Category - Poetry
© Copyright by AuldMiseryGuts

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NB: Or "Forward Graceless Foreigners Part Two" as its also known.

...

With downcast eyes
He defers to blackbirds
Shyly superstitious, trembling
With still-raw awe
In the milk-sop morning,
His first night in London

What brought him here?
Pale Promethean on grey box-balcony, watching

What is it he feels?
For curbed London
Its bound rivers
And mown grass

For an ugly, inanimate city that
Casts no reflection
Fears its own shadow?

What brought him here?
Shy sentinel on grey box-balcony, waiting

Is it the same
Loveless lure
That tame peace of all dead things
That brought me?

I wonder

With downcast eyes
Tears transliterate sorrow
Flood waters rise from
Cold world below-
By increments

I know

We, who are emerald dependant,
Die here
Like wane plants starved of sun

Does he see?
Pale premonition on grey box-balcony, sniffing

In time he too will lose
Colour and blood and only cling
To the white anonymous nucleus
Of survival by
The skin of his teeth

I’m sure

For there are many
Those delicate lepers
Graceful pariahs
Beautiful untermensch

Whose diminished fragility
Is too much to bear
Wending unwanted through the inhuman warrens
Of London

Mad, tactless, rabid city
You come to hate it
‘Cause its blindness destroys you

What brought you here?
Bright sufferer on grey box-balcony, shaking

Poised to become
Predictable
Inevitable
Hidden
Missing
Lost
Gone

We are

And Home
Is depleted
By the act of repetition
Spread thin by replication
To a few undignified sentiments
To a handful of sparse
Dejected gestures

Drink
Fight
Sing

And so on

Sell heather
Wish luck
Scrounge

And so on

Knuckle down
Buckle under
Become crushed

And so on

And we speak the Old Words with
Truncated tongues
And disinclined hearts

Why’d you come here?
Redheaded boy on a Kilburn balcony, dreaming?

Of sky’s inner circle?
Of heaven’s shelter?

I pity you
If you don’t know
That the dead believe nothing

They are not allowed to…

------
The human race, the only race I know where everybody loses.

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Comments

The following comments are for "Redheaded boy on a Kilburn balcony"
by AuldMiseryGuts

Redheaded boy on a Kilburn balcony
Shannon
one of your best.The 7th and 10th stanza are my favorite. Thanks for sharing

( Posted by: wanda [Member] On: March 29, 2007 )

once again
I must thank you for your continued support and encouragement. very much appreciated, Wanda. Heart-felt thanks

Shannon

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: March 29, 2007 )

Kilburn
Shannon.

Coincidental -or serendipitous - I couldn't say . A very good friend of my parents , an elderly Armenian lady , a Miss Vardon , emigrated to London in early 53 . The last address we have of her ,shows her living in Kilburn ,around the time of her passing away ,sometime in the early 70s.

Occasionally , one finds oneself wondering what took her all the way there - to live and die , very likely alone and unloved ,in some dreary Kilburn flat.

( Posted by: RJKT [Member] On: March 29, 2007 )

Redheaded boy
They come for a better job a better life...and sometimes to get away from home...the young ones...with dreams in their hearts...Someone is always watching...the evil ones, who want nothing more than to corrupt the innocent babes...there is no way out and the nightmare kills them...or am I just a babbling idiot? Kacee

( Posted by: Nitz Kitty [Member] On: March 30, 2007 )

thanking two more people
RJKT, living in London for a brief period I often wondered what brought my fellow travellers there, often I wondered what brought me there, and to be honest I still couldn’t give you a definitive answer... I suppose none of us know, I guess the truest thing we can say is that we all run from something…

Kacee, no, you are certainly not a babbling idiot.
many times witnessed disillusionment and the depths and lengths it drives people to, and there are always predators, of one form or another, waiting… sadly…

thanks both for sharing this one.

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: April 2, 2007 )

Grassy Knoll
Reminds me of JFK. I want to shake your hand, but only if you use your right, and I use my left.

( Posted by: PeriwinkleMoses [Member] On: April 4, 2007 )

left hand path...?
how about I use my right hemisphere? I'd sooner shake with that... appreciate your stopping by, Moses.

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: April 4, 2007 )

Favourite
There can be no doubt that this poem rates amongst the best I have read on any poetry site. I am a Londoner...but know what you mean about my city. I applaud everything about this piece of work...use of language...line breaks...the atmosphere you created. Absolutely wonderful piece of writing.

ograd

( Posted by: ograd77 [Member] On: April 5, 2007 )

I wonder...
with the speaker....having never been to London, but am very familiar with losing a friend to its lure some time ago. Thank you for sharing this.

( Posted by: innarae [Member] On: April 5, 2007 )

belated thanks
ograd, innarae, thank you both very kindly for rating commenting this one. I'm honestly flattered. I both and admire and enjoy your craft and vision... so I'm honoured to receive comment from you...

this poem originated a while back, though I think I still feel the same as regards to London... and I return there, sometimes… what keeps me coming back is another poem entirely. Thanks again

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: April 10, 2007 )

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