LONDON REVISITED

a contemporary homage to the William Blake classic

source

I wander streets, my life in pieces
where the poisoned Thames does reek
and mark in every hooded Jesus
marks of weakness, scars that speak,

in every cry of poor conditions,
every mother’s sense of doom,
in every rant of politicians
poverty leaves little room

for broken soldiers, minds like caverns
left to rot in godless ruts,
for churches turned to fancy taverns,
clinics closed in spending cuts,

but most thro’ midnight streets I listen
how the young hyenas cry,
the streetlamps make the knife-blades glisten;
on the pavement, left to die.

The original William Blake poem, “London” published in 1794:

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe,