Rushing through a pale pulp of expressions I hear the droning of Piccadilly shadows Followed by a twisting light and tepid gust Diesel dusted rats squander beneath aluminium sleepers As I am lifted by thin lipped deadline obsessive’s And a nervous American sweating in a Union Jack Who rounds and ripples the rectangular flag. From pages Larkin I pondered On the bleakness of summer and people Who spend there morns and eves here Gripping a yard of pole in there hundreds To never exchange an amiable glance And to apologize profusely if so. I spot a ‘Times’ reader Trying to ogle page three of a tabloid A proper English gentlemen On the outside immaculate Yet inside destroyed, I ponder pages Larkin As I arrive at Baker street Where cockneys become caricatures And tourists become flashlights Thinking to myself Those clever black rats.