In Trafalgar Square
Among the forbidden pigeons, they have gathered
as in any other summer: the latest
security threat won't stop them, the weather
has gone on feeding them. They flutter requests
to have their picture taken at the paws
of Landseer's imperial colossi - less often
below that armless, legless, pregnant torso
and head that coos triumphantly at Nelson,
who turns his back on her, inspects his fleet
of lamp-posts down the Mall. Can he see the queues
in Terminal One from there? Some top nob's sights
must be on war, but no one moves, unless
ascending the steps into the National
to catch the Embarkation of St Ursula,
check out a Flight into Egypt, or a flash
of pale-skinned Bathers. Art mocks Life and Terror
is trompe l'œil: so, go climb the plinth, adopt
a lion, and play I'm King of the Column,
waving to camera phones, or have yourself snapped
between two yellow-jacketed policemen.
May Bank Holiday
The pheasant in his regalia
goes on a walkabout
the length of our mud path
burbling and stretching his neck
to show polite interest
in our weeding, and disdain
for the little birds squabbling
over seed: his tread is a slow
procession to receive the crown
he believes is behind that quickthorn
hedge, where he'll find with some alarm
a chorus of cars demanding
more freedom is moving
to topple him and his heirs.
Eliot's Books
Mine are the lines these lost children
follow across Hungerford Bridge, counting
the profit and the loss, toward a house
of cats; they tot up the working world
on a stave that still accompanies
Marie Lloyd into a waste century
and webs celebrity with self-spun
obscurity in locked forgotten vaults
that cry to be opened, like me, to sing notes
at you from a hole in the wall, dance figures
from a plasma screen, or for a mouse to answer
'Memory' with a cavatina from a fifth quartet.