London

South Norwood

~ J.C. FitzDerick ~ Leave a comment

What lingers in the air is the scent of, mum’s cooking
cooked by someone’s Aunty from Spanish-town.

New black Bimmers pulling up
to  get a recession priced chicken & rice.

Prams and pushers slowing down the 312,
and some fool claims his new oyster card’s ‘in the post‘.

The sky’s blue,
cracking through new build Aldi and the ancient maisonette.

It’s quiet today, the school children at home preparing for school tomorrow,
And the response they’ll give to ‘Where’s your homework!?’

And still after 20 years I love you all the same.
Wise to your failings and flaws.

Your potential
and your trembling peace.

L’inconnu 

~ J.C. FitzDerick ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know where these Union Jacks  flags came from, 

Their interdispersed patriotism 

Realpolitik from a bungalow very much mundane.

We’ve exercised our partition 

With a pride of divorce 

We know who we are 

Our diversed society resourcing our identity from selective shunning. 
But again soon this pride will fade. 

As will the #PostRefRacism

again we will cool complacent.

Individual Pride

~ J.C. FitzDerick ~ Leave a comment

I prop today’s Evening Standard behind the priority seat’s folding desk.
     en-route to sleep alongside my love.
The paper naturally dog-eared from today’s avid reading.
I’ve positioned it so that yesterday’s mini genocide can draw another pair of hands to take on its tear saturated text.

Bhs black trousers, polkadot blouse,  with her hair… frisson.
I catch my new travelling companion’s eyes scanning the papers bold typeface.
I think she’s re-read today’s title, she leant over
nearly embracing the nape of the next row.
She reclines.
Her bag’s yawning mouth hung politely upon her knees,
a book lifted from her bag;
5lbs in 5 days.

*****

Evening Standard – An English newspaper often handed out for free on public transport.

This Is Art (!)

~ J.C. FitzDerick ~ Leave a comment

This is real Street Art.
Passing snap-backed supra-beings say gawking at the Cass-Art aerosol cans
spraying a haute-couture satire of our post-modern globe.
You see this Street Art represents something;
the impotent critique
of artists whose Guardian reading parent’s
lamented Maggie’s closure of the mines north of London,
while saving for their loved one’s housing deposit.

This Art covers the vandalism of before.
Those graffiti cans smeared the marks of a pre-developed community.
What message did that graffiti have?
Nothing legible to those subscribed to The Guardian nor Mail.
Nothing at all, save
the names of the former youth of the estate,
it now priced to evacuate its dutiful placeholders,
so that those formerly lamenting the closure of Maggie’s mines, now
have a place for their children to pursue their adult childhood fantasies.