Street Games III

I
We are their past;
an ashen menagerie
smouldering in side streets
and time-worn tenements,
whose doorways gape like open wounds:–
burnt offerings to the City.

II
We call them children,
but that only outlines their form;
little primitives in a
jungles of streets;
rancid shadows of
what once we should have been.

III
We are the ashes and bones
they are borne from.
Sad; their faces melt
ascending from out fire.


24 August 1977
 
 

This is the final poem in the ‘Street Games’ series, this time focusing on street kids. I can see echoes here of the first poem and also ‘Stray’ and ‘The Venereologist’ and I’ve little doubt I had Lord of the Flies in mind in the second section. There’s definitely a tone here. I wonder why I felt the need to return to this subject a third time.

In 1980 Nationwide reporter Tony Wilkinson spent a month living rough in London on a budget of £4 a day. The planning for his role was meticulous and it made disturbing—but also compelling—viewing. He found things had changed little from when George Orwell had written Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933. Wilkinson subsequently wrote his own book about his experiences called simply Down and Out. My wife had a copy but when she left me in 1982 I deliberately held onto it although to this day I’ve never read it and probably never will.

As far as I can see this poem’s never appeared in print before.