Martins Heron Copyright © Katie Bonna 2011

Yes, ok,
I can see
It’s grey,
Worse than salt and pepper hair,
Worse than elephant rump,
The sort of grey that you can’t bear
That takes lives just by
Being that grey.
I get it.
And, of course, I understand
Your frustrations
With the planned
Engineering works.
It hurts on Saturdays
When it’s that bit harder
To meet your mates
In Putney
To get plastered
And I’m sorry,
Truly sorry,
That I like this city,
That I still find
Looking up at the tops of buildings
Pretty interesting
When you insist
There’s nothing there to see.
And I make no pretence about my
Limited world experience
‘I’ve been travelling around Asia
For the last eleven months’ -
Well done.
I’m from Shrewsbury,
It never did me any harm.
But when was the last time
That you boarded
A train in this country
That wasn’t taking you
To a place where you
Didn’t really want to be in?
Or that you haven’t already seen?
And fields of Forget-Me-Nots scream;
‘Regret-Me-Not!
I’m only British.
I’m not bad!’ It makes me want
To find my old
Flower press
And lay them all to rest,
In a revisitation
Of that childhood fad,
And pin them to hedgerows
In memorium,
Humming some funereal tune -
Expect-Me-Not not to cry.
And, yes,
Delays are rife,
Life litters us with
Snow falling too soon to slush,
Summers rushed
By burnt backs and
Burnt flesh bra straps
And free papers
And bus companions
Preaching Jesus
Upset me too.
I’m not immune.
And parking restrictions,
And inspectors ticketing addictions,
The lack of air conditioning,
The fact that Family Fortunes is still on television,
Except that now they give the money to charity,
Which makes it acceptable,
Apparently.
And taxis cost the Earth
And we can’t live the life
We learned from marketing -
But that’s not that fucking surprising,
Really.
But we do have lots of trees.
And they’re nice.
And even those painted people
In Covent Garden who freeze
And can give me bad dreams,
They’re still quite exciting,
At least the good ones are
(Not so much the man made up of empty bottles,
Although I appreciate his message
Advocating recycling).
And the first time that I ever saw a heron,
Blade of a fishing beak
Slashed against soft downy
Non-city grey,
Hushed in a bush,
Positioned as if planned,
Was from a train
As it pulled
Out of Martins Heron.
And that, you have to understand,
Could only have happened right here,
On British land.