deepundergroundpoetry.com
The Common Woolwich UK 1974
Twenty acres of dereliction
Shooters hill close by
Poverty all round,
Memories of guns and bombs
Horseradish, rampant weeds
Dumped in 1945 bricks and
All the turmoil of a war.
Red buses, stooping women
Heavy laden canvas bags,
Walking home to save a penny
Passed the empty bus stop.
Training ground for armies
Two hundred years or more.
See the tower blocks,
packed homes,look south.
Saint Paul’s symbol of defiance.
Thirty years had passed
Yet slums were all around and
All we had was . . . . THIS!
A contractor now and then
To cut the grass,
Horseradish once again.
Then we let wild flowers grow,
killed the rampant weeds
And cleared the bricks.
Nature returned and war forgot.
Long grass and lovers knots
Grasses waving to the silver moon
No longer need for darkened alleys
Back seats at the pictures, or
Whispers in the crowded house,
Leaning lamp posts and shop doorways.
Small boys chasing butterflies,
Observers Book open at Meadow-Brown
Their homes thirteen stories high.
Ladies picking flowers,forgotten
Since before the war.
And when the autumn came
Children seeing drying grass,
A farmer, tractor and his trailer
Bringing to the crowded town
England’s green and pleasant land
While taking back the hay.
Buses and trains still there
High rise blocks and factories
Yet through the veil of smoke
A glimpse of countryside.
Small boys chasing butterflies
Lovers knots on moon lit nights,
Ladies picking flowers.
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