Poems from Down Underground

From the afternoon of the 16th to the 17th of July's final hours, me, my mum and my dad, staying a stone's throw away from Soho, had free reign to roam the streets of London. Well, freedom in a relative sense for some: my parents were to attend an event on the Monday, leaving me to throw myself back into the city's lauded 'lines and lines' - the League of Gents' quote regurgitated every time we mentioned the Underground - which I'd experienced for the first time on the Sunday.

Throughout our fleeting trip to the capital, I managed to find ways to keep the resident petulant child of my mind - that is, the 'creative' side - occupied, by way of staining the A5 sheets of paper I'd brought along with coffee leftover from the outbound train journey and, later, with tea provided by our accommodation.

Wrote some poems on them, too. I would've attached some photographs of my boredom/insanity provoked experiments below but, as you'd most likely find my handwriting indecipherable, I'll type what my hand scrawled out instead.

Hope you enjoy!

Written 16/7/23:

The whitest sneakers

Along the aisle

He's reading something,

His eyes suggest, worthwhile

And the lightest of smiles

Overrides furrowed brow -

In literature he's lost

So relinquishes watch

Re-entering the now.

The day has just begun

And I'm waiting for the day to end

I'm waiting for the train to halt

The lines to fault;

Fates of all aboard to then depend

On expertise

The guardian angels kitted out in jumpsuits

Trained to defend.

The day has just begun 

And I wait in vain for my brain to mend.

Train rider clandestine

Shields himself from eyes that pry

Mans the fort through bars of light

With stare as solid though the night

But the barricades he'll use to shade

Bear the very secrets meant to hide

And down the aisles, they'll see the truth:

And all while he'll have thought he's lied.

Written 17/7/23

I was up at 2AM

Haven't slept a wink since then

How am I to face today

When my mind is confined to the night?

Gaping curtains bring me light:

Salt in the wound of my sleepless plight

How am I

To go outside

Into this day-bright night?

Why did he sleep on the Nero sofa?

Displayed in all of his dishevelled glory

But unconscious; blind to the prying passers-by

That peer into, and through, his soul -

Oh, ghoulish care of humankind,

Shall he not rest in peace?

I glance at the map of the Underground:

A sprawling spaghetti network

Consisting of veins; blue hues and

Green shades

And those dominant red streaks to which

My eyes gravitate.

For the first time,

I put myself on the line -

The 'Northern' one, to be precise -

And though my bones the carriage shakes

And while I fly when carriage brakes

And even despite how I walk on the right

I exit left

And I find I'm still alive.

So this is how it ends?

Sat in Euston, almost alone

Save for the bucket-hatted man

Blasting Greatest Hits on the bench

Adjacent to mine.

The heat has liquidised my skin

And mind has vapourised what strength

Had yet remained within,

So here I stain;

Inextricable from the amorphous mass of

'The Mentally Ill'

I am the filth that infiltrates

Your precious fantasy

The issue ingrained, the words engraved

Into the cobbled tombs on which you

Walk.

He said the willows weep for me -

Alas, I see no tears:

Only drooping leaves malformed

By the wind

Enshrined in the sun's afternoon glow,

Dry.

I retort, 'oh, were I not blind,

Then I could with them cry.'

London Euston

Forty five minutes drag us into purest madness

Huffing, shouting, puffing, buzzing

Desperation for homely respite

Taking its ghastly hold over us.

Bug-eyed girl

Bound for the new town

Disappeared amongst the crowd

But, following the suitcase scuttling sound,

I caught her leaving frame

And lost myself, not in those eyes

But in the lack thereof.

My mum's head is circular,

Cyclical, swaying in

Sleep obstructed by

The train's incessant

Thumps and bumps

And 'chug-a-chug-chug's

I'm grateful for this

Particular vehicle's

Graciousness

In keeping her head screwed on

Some photography favourites:

National Portrait Gallery gallivanters.

The Tube: bloody loud but bloody well fast!

Lanterns above a family digging into some phenomenal Chinese cuisine

That which soon followed

The view from below