Facelifting

A couple of months back I decided I was going to be the extremely unofficial (and highly dubious) poet-not-quite-in-residence (but living round the corner) for the forthcoming olympic games in London. This is the first draft of the second poem written for that marvellous folio:

Facelifting

Workshy, rushed, rushing
to work late like binmen.
Exit chores: the disposal
of food waste has me
leaping for air, fungus
spores lifted by the glush
of rot from bucket
to bin to neck me like
a ribbon, gold in a light
from a blue-sky morning.

Later, waiting for buses:
a glass carriage drawn
by white horses, plumed.
A train of sleek cars,
mournerless, parading
through Mare Street. Silver
handlebars decorate
a white coffin: I shall
remember those ornaments
around a stranger's corpse.

Hackney Town Hall must have
fresh steps, new adornments
to match the flutter
of flags. Seven years
to spruce this corpse,
recycle this pock-worn
friend of a town. Folks
need architecture to recall
the momentary glory,
the bronze of bling.