A Ring Of Expletives Around My Head Going Over Every Bridge On The River Thames Poem by Sean Joyce

Wretched, displaced, childhood truncated
'miss my friends and the rain on the rocks
sullen anger is a miserable defence
I'm crying in the spoils of the empire

Voiceless, cross-eyed, misshapen, dumb
I'm living behind the skirting board
A ring of expletives around my head
going over every bridge on the river Thames

Sixteen seasons rock and roll
memories fade in the clamour
Street names become poems and the underground
is a map of opportunity and freedom

The Stones, Chelsea and Mary Quant
Slone Square, The Kinks and The Old Kent Road
The statues are smaller then they first appeared
But the government has purchased Polaris

There is no malice in this place
just 8 million contending ambitions
Now and then I find some with me aligned
And occasional small acts of kindness