'Walkabout' a poem submitted by Michael Hampton would have fitted excellently with the collection of verse published as part of our recent issue on credit, debt and financial crisis. As a late arrival it joins the site here and as part of our Ongoing accumulation of fiscal verse 

Walkabout

these cartographies bleed biographies

Sukhdev Sandhu, Night Haunts (2007)

Over ancient slabs

in the portico...[1]

snail-SNAILpaced via

St.Magnus Martyr;

up Fish Street Hill

to see Cibber’s[2] bas relievo

in the footsteps of the London dead,

gathering dust, gathering traces;

a haunted bustling blur

of phantom folk,

marbles that fell from the edge

of a scarred, tavern table.

2.

Across London Bridge

on Shank’s pony, amid

tourists, ‘I-Pod’ joggers,&

latte-guzzling City types who

dawdle or press on to their destination;

one of the last flâneurs, phantom of the streets

& alleys, a Pudding Lane vector.

Close up:

The Monument:[3]

Wren & Hooke’s column

wrapped in a neat vertical box of scaffold,

‘Allen & Foxworthy Scaffolding Services’:

contractors of this perfect marvel,

a same-size laser print of the pillar hung

as temporary memo and work screen...

to re-gild the orb, remove graffiti and soot,

with virtual gallery cage vistas at street level,

an Olympian restoration of its 202 feet.

3.

REFRAIN

Round & round Swiss Re[4] the ragged rascal runs

round & round the smart megalith he goes,

rambling on past healthy hedge funds

in this ward of steel and glass and stone.

4.

Follow:

King William St./Eastcheap/ Philpot St./Fenchurch St. EC3/Lime St./The Grapes/ Bolton House 1907/Leadenhall Market/Lloyd’s building/Billiter St./St.Andrew Undershaft/(under siege)/30 St.Mary Axe/Balls Bros./EAT/The Baltic Exchange/ Chamomile St./Outwich St./Houndsditch/Bishopsgate/Old Bedlam/Pret a Manger/Liverpool St.

stalking

poly-Albion’s

fiscal core

in need of

a piss,

In search

of

coff-

ee.

Michael Hampton, Battersea, 2007-8