signs and wonders
every last Friday

I've got a folder
on my computer
named 'Current Projects'
this song is in it
along with others
they're current projects

a woman stops me
stops me to ask me
is that the Albany
the Albany Deptford
I say yes
I didn’t realize
it was so close
I could park
I could walk
I say I guess

myself wants to talk
to talk to yourself

nobody trusts this
warm weather
they’re all wearing coats

singing songs
songs with lyrics
full of meaning

the boy walked into
into the road
because he was hit by
hit by the bus

he’s got the ‘ump
Emergency Tax

basically
literally

it should be
no larger than
a sheet of A4
a sheet of A4 paper

the girl that passed
passed on the platform
the aroma of chocolate

It's just the worstest
time really

The Welshman on
on the night bus
said he'd had enough
of this country
he couldn't wait
to get back to China.

she's living on toast

two phones
on the bus

New Cross pavements
health insurance?

music on earphones
whose earphones?
his earphones?
no, mine.

unattended bags
cause delays
please keep yours with
you at all times

the exclamation mark
is to the right
of the block of text
and runs its full height
vertically
the point at its base
is a graphical image
of a case
we stop and start
through the emptied estates

CCTV
is in operation
at all times
at this station

in the same place
but not in the same state
in the same place
but not in the same time

the thing I notice
on the old estate
the smell of weed
new seats
and the puddles are
all in the same place
the puddles are
still in the same place

to help and bless
and save the working
the working classes

stinking unpaved
unpaved lane
rough sailors
from cattle steamers
women selling
jumping jacks
men hawking
primrose roots
rabbits dangling
from the end of a stick
here would be a vendor
a vendor of whirligigs
there a mender
of old umbrellas
a blind beggar

Italian women
women with cages
of fortune telling
fortune telling canaries

the hemp that is to hang me
is not grown yet

the police stopped
stopped all such customs
the electric light
can never be applied
applied indoors
without the production
of an offensive smell
which undoubtedly
causes headaches

about a pound a week
from the butchers'
and greengrocers’ shops
gaslights flared
flared and flickered
wild and ghastly
haggard groups
of slipshod dirty
dirty women
bargaining for
scraps of stale meat
and frost-bitten vegetables
wrangling about
short weight and bad
and bad quality

fish stalls and fruit stalls
lined the edge of the greasy
the greasy pavement
sending up odours
as foul as the language
of sellers and buyers

blood and sewer water
crawled from under doors
and out of spouts
reeked down to the gutters
among offal, animal and vegetable
in every stage of
of putrefaction

she would bring
bring a tray up
with a bowl of water
soap and flannel
and a towel for washing
and make our bed
comfortable
and meals such as
as we could eat
were brought upstairs

sometimes Mum was
given back
a shilling or two
I can imagine how
she must have saved this
to buy something
to improve the home