Stroud Green Road in the Rain

The following prose-poem
was written during my almost two year sojourn in London in the  late 1980s .


Its that type of free association prose that was at the time very much inspired by the writings of Jack Kerouac- and it most certainly is a style that epitomizes that sense of passing through- sparse in punctuation it truthfully reports on all it sees, with an exuberant rolling excitement. i literally sat on the pavement to write this much as an artist would sketch the scene around him.

Stroud Green Road in the Rain

The bus driver is only doing his job-

he says I am out of my zone

 come on mate- take a look at the rain-

I just want to get home

 never mind- its not too far to walk

 as this sudden shower comes steaming down

London bus lookin all shiny red and new in the rain

.so i take cover and huddle on the pavement

and write this poem-

 as rain spilling over the cracked asphalt

 washing over me toes,

 Becoming  rivers in the gutter-searching  and returning  and  gushing down to The  Thames

 In drab doorway I  see pregnant mother

with dripped make-up and cigarette-

 a bloke runs past into the Tote-

That emits  a stench of Old Holborn and alcohol

 The cool dread hipster blackman sound shop-

pumpin out da reggae sound all round

an peeps chillin there inside all snug an dry and smokin

  an outside da rain drippin down.

headless wooden mannequins in windows indifferent and dead to the scene

model outdated displays of yesteryears east end Fashion

The screech -grind -halt

 of braking trucks and cars taxis and buses and halt heave hum, go off and on

phrases like jazz emitted from the traffic hissing

on the wet steam road passing the plain low gates

and walls of modest east end brick

Little pockets of Istanbul-

vending exotic skewered tastes -

empty cardboard boxes piled high on the pavement-

sickly sweet old vegetable odours

curiously shaped Paprikas- purple sweet potatoes

- halved pumpkins, ginger Aponkenam, breadfruit,

Karla, Kassava and Jamaican mangoes

Ol carribean Mama she price the purple Taters

an mumble she grumble onward, homeward

past the asian butcher selling cows feet

fifty nine pence for two

sad looking cadavers of chickens

comically -hung by their feet

boney alien headless n sad

and blood spurted and smeared

and dried on a cardboard box-

so rich an odour of spice and death-

what words to use? -

yams and hams and potted jams

shelves stacked with imported cans

grinding horror of the butchers blade

splintered marrow bone in broken bleeding box.

brown Black plantain bananas-

fat black boy in trainers and baseball cap-

kicks a discarded apple about in a puddle-

Illegible torn bills and posters on posts

walls and naked wooden doors

of cracked paint peeling in the rain

Unnumbered identities of unknown ethnic origins

scattered uprooted far travelled communities

stirred in the stew of this electric  eclectic London Crucible

shuffling by under unhappy umbrellas-

an unenthused housewife in tracksuit pushing

twins in double pram and wishing

she had married into money

North Africans in bright kaftans

 surreally saunter  in the sunny attitude of summer

somehow the Tottenham and Celtic supporters

seem more misplaced in this scene-

people with gaunt giro-cheque expressions

huddled in Pub over pints

awaiting the Worlds End

To my left number plates while you wait

keys cut school of motoring special rates

then a right into Finsbury station out of the rain

and the scene fades.