Northern Lines

Northern Lines

(Embankment)

This is where we always used to start from
In those days, a slow tide up the Thames.
Horrific, innocent days not so long ago.
I think of memory's healing properties.
I think of failure.

(Charing Cross)

No-one gets hit by love like a returning memory,
A sudden realisation of a long-held secret truth.
These changes of heart
Are too much to hope for.
I think of forcing the issue.
I think of direct action.

(Leicester Square)

London was always a mystery, a parcel
And all the joy in the unwrapping because inside it always disappointed.

(Tottenham Court Road)

When I grow up I want to be the person who says the stations on the tube,
Sounds like an easy job.
When I grow up I want to pin eras to paper
With the same truths that frighten childish bravery,
And draw out conflict in the familiar
Pulse of dead-end vibrant city life.
Want to see necessary changes displayed neatly,
Like on a tube map with nothing but time
Standing in the way,
And the world a collection of inevitable destinations.
When I grow up I want to be a writer,
Sounds like an easy job.

(Goodge Street)

Many nights I've been on coaches, distance passing imperceptibly
While I've tried half-heartedly to sleep.
On the tube there's no distance no direction
Just a consuming impatient journey
Forcing me, just for a second, to close my eyes
And wonder why I'm taking it at all.
But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there
So wake up, look at the map again.
Wake up. We're moving forwards.
I think of five years.
I think of planning.

(Warren Street)

There's some angry sermon here,
Some message I could tease out if my mind
Wasn't stuck between a lost past and a stolen future.

(Euston)

Thanking circumstance for my
Freedom to sigh over small problems
And kicking some sort of discipline into myself,
I turn to face the next one.
Thinking of absence.
Thinking of failure.
Thinking of stops on the journey.