Notting Hill
Sharp the memory at Notting Hill,
On The Tube, the image still,
Like crystal, when white and black ignited,
Teddy Boy, Calypso Man violent and excited,
They fought in hundreds on the street,
And the Bobby, on his beat,
could scarce separate warring factions,
Terror, hate were the new attractions,
Intolerance embedded in 1958,
With bike chains, the Boys could not satiate
their lust for Caribbean blood
which spilt on brutal bitumen in a flood
until all was said and done,
Battle neither lost nor won,
Battered pride and bodies, too,
Catch The Underground to Waterloo,
There, read the papers, early edition,
News bare and raw, no condition,
Then was then and then is now,
This storyteller wonders how
imploded London has forgotten
race divide was entrenched and rotten.
© Michael Garrad July 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment