Thursday 14 August 2008

Michael McKimm - The Lammas Lands (1)

Six Poems for Hackney Marsh

What I shall miss is the smell at the end
of the street, the sound of water gushing
under Hackney - marsh-water, Lea Valley
tribulations, all that's dank and dead in
hidden liquid: history mainly, flooded
plains scuttling Viking warships, sewer-tales
and monies made from bodies, layers of clay
and chalk and once-crisp water, drinkable
by seamen down at Limehouse. If you think
of water as the thing that builds a town
you can't imagine living where the river
doesn't run, even if that river is a stream
that swells with rainfall, coming up from drains
and forever whispering beneath your feet.

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Gists and Piths will be publishing 'The Lammas Lands' in six consecutive installments. Tune in tomorrow for section two. . .

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