London Nights (some bits of language)

[dedalus]

There you are on the curve

when a car pulls in with a swerve

and deposits three dollies:

these are London dollies, you can tell,,

red-lipped, white-faced, not looking so well,

and teetering on 6 or 7 inch heels

and you wonder for a moment how it feels

and what that would be in centimeters

as they totter, uncertainly, unsmilingly past,

and one throws up in the garden flowers

and I pat her back and say 'dear, dear'

but she wrenches away with a gasp of fear.

And so they move up onwards, into the house,

one of these small semi-detached jobs,

now bursting with noise, solid, red- bricked,

surly, put up before the Great War,

and we walk into the sudden welcome heat

and get the cold-eyed look, the questions,

before some grudging lukewarm drinks,

and I swear to God it's the Kinks

singing 'Waterloo Sunset'. I was fuckin there, you know,

standing on that bridge they have, looking down

on their filthy grey-green river

and thinking of our own

not so very clean itself, undulating,

writhing and sliding under the many white bridges,

some with the heads of non-Christian gods,

and smiling up all the while at uncertain, agnostic,

non-Celtic Dublin, where we all live and have our being,

until we go to these large bleedin cities like London,

where I said to this little dolly-bird

"Well, girl, would you like to fuck"

and when she said, "whatevever", I lost my

carapace, my masculine mind, I walked out

into the warm and dirty drizzle,

had a piss on a roadsign near the corner.

[dcmarti1]

Draws out many emotions. For some reason I REALLY like these snippets:

 

these are London dollies, you can tell,,

red-lipped, white-faced, not looking so well,

and

put up before the Great War,

and we walk into the sudden welcome heat

and get the cold-eyed look,

 

and

 

at uncertain, agnostic,

non-Celtic Dublin, where we all live and have our being,

It has a sense of sadness but not of desperation. In much earlier times, before The Flood, I had loosely similar experiences, so this piece was relevant AND evocative. Thanks for posting.

[tonyv]

Agree with Marti. Well captured mood. I also love how "whatever" and "the warm and dirty drizzle" serve to convey and emphasize a sense of familiarity.

 

Tony

[Benjamin]

Can't escape the abrasive rigours of modern behaviour even in smaller towns now: and the "I don't care" attitude of "whatever" and "innit" reflect the trends and changes of a language that make the young all sound like wannabe gangstas. Reminds me of my youth... donkey jackets, jeans and pop music. All trying so hard to be different that we ended up looking and sounding just the same.