London fog, harshly early with strained warning,
Looms all over the image of the hectic city
There’s the smell of mists and the taste of
Frozen rain gathered before dawn.
Pulses brake and start,
And lungs are besieged by distilled grime,
Industrial tainting.
I can’t see well beyond five feet ahead of me
As I labour to walk,
But headlamps from crawling cars and buses
Fill my eyes
Carbon monoxide lightly blackens the already seated greyness.
I’m headed frantically to somewhere important —
An appointment, if you like,
And through a litter of tunnels below London’s
Grand and winding bowels.
I must get to the Jericho part of the city from the
Jerusalem part of it —on train —before eight a.m., and
From the tunnels of dimmed lights to the haunting
Surface of the wretched earth.
And time is grossly impatient with me.
Or, rather, I am stupidly impatient with time.
Rush hour is always frantic with breathlessness.
Hell.
Earth trembles.
Men and spirits jostle for space and breath,
All rushing to Hell.
You can tell by their strongly contorted faces —
Students and workers, agents and moguls of all trades.
Among them the naïve in mind and spirit.
Among them victims of insomnia
Among them natural early risers.
These are true disciples of a restless city.
And the trains come and go, snaking through dark holes and waterless canals.
The rail lines heat up with the intense friction between
Hardened metal and desolate particles of earth.
The din is typical of a marketplace. . . .
In the inhalation of confusion, I hasten into one train,
Hoping to arrive in the dead of time.
A full running house, peopled to its fragile capacity.
Like an overcrowded stadium —some seated, some standing,
Hardly well-balanced.
Many in suits, others in fragments of tailored bits,
Dark and light, according to their sensibilities.
On some seats, newspaper pages spread out
With the measurement and arrogance of albatrosses’ wings.
There are readers with their books —crime novels,
Lipstick-coated romances, horror.
Stephen King. Danielle Steel. Jackie Collins.
Many reading the faces of their mobile phones.
Stunning silence, except the panting and gasping of the train.
The smell of perfumes humbles me,
All —a mixture of traded plants, wild and foreign.
Integrated colognes.
I’m besieged. Oh, my poor lungs!
The train belches at any station it gets to
And I steal a glance at the outside world and at
My wristwatch. . . .
When on the space of an hour my destination seems
Many more dark years away, I ponder over the laziness
Of the train, and question my decision.
I quarrel with myself.
Fog is clearing fast, and time is traversing the earth with the
Swiftness of a gale in delirium, and,
With it, my befuddled brains are addled by a difficult morning.
Suddenly realising you’ve been on the wrong train is akin to
Suddenly realising you’ve been on a friendship with a fake friend —
You can’t wait to jump down at the next station. . . .
But, alas, I am to go no further when the train halts!
And the whole world alights —each man with the strides of
Olympians in distant Greece; each woman, burdened by her handbag,
As though rushing to her kitchen to check how the day has been frying.
Christ!
One last glance at my watch.
I am as embarrassed as the young day whose mists have been filched,
Her nakedness revealed when she was stripped of her fog-cloth,
Her brio, her essence —all commandeered by a peeping sun, mild and intrusive.
A peeping Tom, if you like.
A sky-dwelling voyeur.
I realise that dawn had indeed broken!
Yes, it dawns on me.
I am already very late.