london – Page 3 – don't confuse the narrator

old chestnuts

Horse chestnuts hold pale torches high
in green spread fingers and old wisteria
writhes around wrought iron
in a blue-teared cascade.
Throughout the city,
elm trees sway, scattering
indifferent confetti.

These lines have been retrieved and re-vamped from a poem called Flowers for an Easter wedding.

It was written some years ago – in Spain, which accounts for the elms, and for why it’s so out of synch with the English flowering season – and I think it was published as a three stanza piece with 15 lines.
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irrelephant

In London for a few days and I see they are having an elephant parade.

This is the only one I have got close enough to photograph so far, and although bright enough in himself, he didn’t go far towards brightening the dingy turning off Oxford Street where he was located.
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snow’ku

Snowfall in the suburbs:
commuter cars
wear Father Christmas beards.

Yes, it deserves an accompanying photo, but there has been so much talk recently about using cameras in public places that I was hesitant to take one. In central London yesterday there was little more than:

A silent scampering of snow

but half way through the afternoon, when I headed west on a train from Paddington, it was still apparent that there had been far more snow outside the capital.

right to read

One thing I try and do when I’m in London is get to the Poetry Unplugged open mike at the Poetry Café on a Tuesday night. It’s usually packed, often inspiring and always fun, not least because of the skill and wit of the host, Niall O’Sullivan. Each participant is allowed up to five minutes at the mike, so it’s possible to perform several short pieces or one longer one.

I was there this week and dithering about what to read as I haven’t been writing much recently – at least not finishing much in the way of poetry. Sitting and listening to the readers in the first half, I was reminded how the poems that are best for reading aloud to an audience are not always the ones you are proudest of, or that are likely to get published or win competitions.
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a different creed

I used to work in Millbank Tower in London and of all the city’s many galleries and museums, the one I am most familiar with is the Tate – Tate Britain as it is now. When in London, I usually try and find time to visit.

Apparently next year they are going to start to allow photography, but at the moment the only works you can take pictures of are a few sculptures at the entrance and the works displayed outside. Which includes the 1999 work by Martin Creed, currently displayed on the building façade above the Millbank entrance: