The Six-Thirty for St Pancras

by John Stocks

London lies waiting at the end of the line,
Seething with metropolitan passion
Under a cloudless sky this hot June day.
Imagine it humming like a locust swarm
Shimmering wildly under ozone,
Leaking dreams into the stratosphere.

London’s words flow and flood with the river,
Inundating bookshops and libraries.
I ponder the latest emissions
The no man’s land of St Pancras station
Less than an hour away as the wine flows.
London imagined seems just as real.

When I travelled south with the anarchists
From Manchester with righteous anger,
Our knives sharpened for the Thatcher boys,
Then I hated London with a mission:
The proletarian-toadying Tories,
The drab pomposity of royalty,
Slick bankers smug in their easy vice.

I couldn’t love London until it called,
Inviting my time to read and talk,
Until it put me up in smart hotels
And I began to feel it wanted me.
But now it’s love unconditional
For chaos and deconstruction,
The capital’s chameleon smile.