At Cricklewood
At Cricklewood
The faces pass
In numerous types and features
Where from? What language?
The cars throng in diesel scent
And flutter litter gathers
In the blackened doors of
Squalid bedsits
Where cans of drink
Are thrown and tossed with butts
And debris of disdain
For this adopted “home”
Pound stores bulge
With plastic tat
And men leer from sullen bars
Where carpets soaked in grime
And dried beer
Reek and moan a familiar fug
Here I arrive at the 'Beaten Docket'
Disguise my middle-class self
Beneath old clothes and with a worn canvas bag
Clasping a blue holdall of hand tools
Fish and chips, mushy peas
Washed down with a pint of lager
I watch the punters –
In the corner an old Irish lady with knobbly hands
A lean narrow face, cupped-over in a woolly hat
Her daughter bides her belligerence kindly
Two old men by the window
Fast to their papers
Stop to stare into the street
What lies out there – except bittersweet memories?
Perhaps the War, the suave Americans,
The Doodlebug exploding on Ivy street,
Or long hours in the munitions factory?
They sigh, and continue reading
Pressing their double chins down in bulges
And adjusting their reading glasses
Staring and peering at the ramble of words
And mis-facted text
Framing up a world-view
Creating an order from life's chaos
I must go home
Back to my considered colour scheme
My own order
I take the number 16 bus
Out of Cricklewood
