It was footsteps on the water that lay upon the pavements, echoes falling through the cracks to shake the sleeping policemen and the red lights falling scratched and ragged on the ***** windows that woke me from my sleep.

I watched her order coffee from the vendor on the corner where a brazier used to sit and warm the feet of passing strangers
and not knowing what had once been there she became a Queen where no Queen had been before.

I no longer rest so well
London's noisy
the place has gone to hell
and gentrification has forced
the poverty line
to move along and find itself
another line,

in another time it was just the same
new things came
and went
but
people stayed the course
now of course
they don't.

It's depressing how
some folk revel in this,
must be
morbid curiosity
and where
magnanimity
is just a word
you have to google,
you may as well
give in.

and the footsteps on the water
walking closer
getting nearer
are enough to cheer a
groom up
on a shotgun
wedding day.