altariel | Invisible cities

kathyh's thought-provoking post about London not only set me onto this terrific Anglo-Saxon poem about living alongside Roman ruins, but made me think about other writings about cities.

White City by Shane MacGowan

Here a tower shining bright
Once stood gleaming in the night
Where now there's just the rubble in the hole
Here the paddies and the frogs
Came to gamble on the dogs
Came to gamble on the dogs not long ago

Oh the torn up ticket stubs
From a hundred thousand mugs
Now washed away with dead dreams in the rain
And the car-parks going up
And they're pulling down the pubs
And its just another bloody rainy day

Oh sweet city of my dreams
Of speed and skill and schemes
Like Atlantis you just disappeared from view
And the hare upon the wire
Has been burnt upon your pyre
Like the black dog that once raced
Out from trap two

North-West by Carol Ann Duffy

However it is we return to the water's edge
where the ferry grieves down by the Pier Head,
we do what we always did and get on board.
The city drifts out of reach. A huge silvery bird,
a kiss on the lip of the wind, follows our ship.
This is where we were young, the place no map
or heritage guide can reveal. Only an X on a wave
marks the spot, the flowers of litter, a grave
for our ruined loves, unborn children, ghosts.
We look back at the skyline wondering what we lost
in the hidden streets, in the rented rooms,
no more than punters now in a tourist boom.
Above our heads the gulls cry yeah yeah yeah.
Frets of light on the river. Tearful air.

[

glitterboy1, that's from the collection you bought me for my birthday. I was glad it had a poem about a place we both know :-) ]

From Making History by Stephen Fry

Say, stand the bollards yet in rows
Mute guardians of the contraflows?
Are there stabbings after dark?
And is it still a cunt to park?