To the Southwark of The Globe, The Swan and The Fortune, the bear pit and the taverns and happyhouses and the the Blakeless Bride. The genius of Southwark? The cleric failed to see the chances are few for the pounding heartbeat of self kenosis in art and love and life in Southwark, and the jewel of Blake's hymn, Jerusalem.


no flower once picked grows back however strong the stem

her got done too, sent back
failed to meet the something ...
Off the list now
Breath-bated and clogged-ears in the charity camps

Banjos in the tunnels by the air blasts
cloth caps tin cups coins
and a wild-eyed child with a dummy
in a crowd of kneecaps and pounding feet.

Airless hairless and eyeless
and groaning in Gaza the lot of us
Not a temple to think on
nor jaw-bone to recall.

There's an asteroid on its way as big as Gibraltar
Galileo's under house arrest
Crime pays, rules tax
ans superheated lava fills the caverns left by gas wells

the round glass circles of the cathedral roses
and grounded mazes give hope
there's rumours of oxygen outside the windows of the world
stars do last longer than poverty, says the vatican, Infallibly.

But eternity's an idea that experiences nothing
Nothing of the bone-cold concrete dirt
of a rough shaveless life
in the midst of surplus waste