Songs of South London

A Work in Progress 
45

Of Esaw, Mabel, their second son Donal,

and the Street where they lived...


                       

                          1. 

                       Dawn

A path that led from a country churchyard

became a footpath over the fields

to a stile where Donal sat and watched

the sun tip up the night's dark shields

through clodded dirt he heard the footpath

resonate   thickened with composted leaves

suggesting earth's accretion

how from all things natural beauty leaves

rain divided evenly about the stile

sunlight pared through cloud

a rainbow arched above the hedge

song thrushes sang out loud.

                           2.

                         Esaw

          Esaw's a lonely old man

          who ain't dipped his end in

          to any of that honey

          for a long  long time

          He sits on the steps

          of tenement dreams

          a waif on the edge

          of an extinct happiness

          remembering how it was

          when he talked Mabel in

          to the twenties

          when men enraged

          had marched and sung

          and he was fired twice

          for fighting

          The Fusiliers took him in

           took him to India

           he brought back brass trays

           boars tusks    pictures of the Taj Mahal.

           Esaw just sits

           a soft spoken old man

           his glass eye matched to his brown

           One day in the desert at Frenchmen's Hell

           he was blown up by a mine

           and the Ministry insisted on sending him false ones

           but the eyes they sent were always the wrong color

           Remembering how it was

           when he talked Mabel on

           to his motorbike

           and they went to Box Hill

           He sits on the steps of tenement dreams

           of piano playing in Peckham pubs

           getting Mabel to give him back rubs

           No one pays him any mind

           or the men who lie

           in the gutter beside

           drunk a century ago

                        3

                    Mabel

            Mabel was a barmaid

            when Esaw first his eyes laid

            on her charms

            her face    her arms

                   eyes that ogle

                   eyes that leer

                   men in braces

                   sipping beer

             Smiling Mabel seemed to hear

             a voice proclaim her prowess

             Esaw swung around to glare

             decided it was just a dare

             (saw that William was not there)

             While his fellows discussed the track

             spilt beer on the counter started to tack

             Esaw wondered

             if he'd lost the knack

                   eyes that ogle

                   eyes that leer

                   men in braces

                   sipping beer 

             Was William with her that other night

             when Esaw was coming home by bike

             and saw him in the early light

             in Mabel's street    suspicious like

             Esaw was a working man

             when Mabel first to smile began

             at him alone    a special smile

             that lasts    and last    and lasts a man

             eyes that ogle           eyes that behold

             eyes that leer            eyes that bind

             men in braces           a man and a woman

             sipping beer              growing old and kind

                                4

                  Ballad of The Street

              This ballad spans the many years

              that Donal tramped the Street...

              listened to her many tales

              who knew so many by their feet

              A widow lived by Myatt's Fields

              in Calais Gate    off Cormont Road

              her life was bleak as week by week

              she bore a heavy load

              Three kids were left her

              when her husband died

              one could walk    two could run

              The street could tell you which one lied

              about hiding apples in a jug

              or who drank the Christmas brandy

              which one broke his mother's heart

              which one brought her candy

              They lived in roomy Calais Gate

              the best flats for miles around

              so well built that from outside

              you couldn't hear a sound

              She wished they had stayed in Brixton

              where a motor bike was class

              not found themselves amongst

              the motorized top brass

              But homes for wounded heroes

              were provided at low rent

              so Esaw and Mabel got

              a flat from heaven sent...

              Servants bells the children rang

              when they pretended to be swank

              lots of room for silver spoons

              and trees outside    not streets that stank

              Home from the wars the soldiers came

              and motor-cycles roared

              like Esaw they tuned their Nortons'

              and pretended to be Lords

              Now William owned an Anglia

              which he drove with leather gloves

              he parked it in the City

              if you please...

              In the war he'd been a warden

              patrolling Calais Gate

              keeping watch for fires on rooftops

              from next to Mabel's grate

              Now his wife patrolled in turn

              looking for her man...

              as Sergeant Esaw once looked for him

              when he heard they were holding hands

              The street had seen it coming

              seen it develop over time

              watched Esaw   Mabel   Bill   and Doris

              acting out their mime

              Poor Esaw didn't last long

              he had a stroke one New Year's Eve

              then Bill resumed his visits

              fooled the kids with makebelieve

              But Doris wasn't fooled at all

              nor were the kids for long

              she paced outside their windows in the cold...

              Then the street knew what was wrong

              The kids were growing up fast

              to Bill they didn't take too kind

              especially when Doris

              accosted them outside

              This tale went on for many years

              before the play was done...

              and the world of childish make believe

              had several lives undone

              Now that is what divorce is for

              The Street told Donal primly

              It's wrong for a man to womanize

              before his wife so openly

             Some good advice I give to you

             who live in the world of faces

             It is the type of tread a person has

             leads to such bad consequences.

                     5

      Donal Solipsist

      Damned cold

      beside the window

      he sat up in his bed

      & he said to himself

      Donal   he said

      you're getting the thin end

      of the wedge

      The moon was grey

      under the big tent

      like a one spot dab of light

      on the deserted stage

      of a darkened theatre

      Moon swimming in a mirror

      & Donal sat in bed

      thin DAMNED COLD he said

      & WHITE

      with a yellowed whiteness

      very pale thin

      swaying buds of sun against white

      he was he said

      COLD

                     6

      While Washing Windows

When Donal worked as a window cleaner

equipped with a bucket and a bag of rags

he'd work awhile then stop and ponder

the streaks on the glass that were drying fast

Window cleaning    work all poets should try

so many moments of calm to savor

visions of the innermost eye

As once when a stranger to her darkened room

he watched her brow against the pane

touch the streetlight's glow

Remembering how her silhouette

pressed sodium yellow to the brain

he'd squeeze his sponge for another wipe

then start to work again.

                     7

          Candles

Black night studded by streetlights

streetlights running in chains

at a window pane a forehead touched

pressed despair into the brain

Eyes tilt down the running streets

streetlights like Cavafy's candles

candles for the years passing

and in the darkness    no moon

Come let us do the arithmetic of cities

the counting of souls

male and female

with an abacus count two

A soul saved is one

a soul lost is zero

binary one and binary zero

alive is one    dead is zero

Do you hear wind chimes tinkling?

ghosts are registering the dead

the dead silenced cells in your brain

cells that dissolve in sound

"Come on love

come round the corner

come and hug me

come and squeeze me

hold me tight

on the building site

Mind that shovel

mind the puddle

come on love

let's have a cuddle

Use that mug

that white tin mug

that lies there in the pool

See    it's full of lifetime's sludge

swirl it round and read our future

aches and pains and useless drudge

oh throw it at the concrete mixer".

                    8

      Said the Street

      "You came back then

      after all you said

      about people who live here

      being common    ill bred"

Yes, I came back

Donal said,

and now I abhor

envious mean-spirited people I meet

      "You came back then

      but not to forgive

      or to be one with us

      not to live and let live"

Yes    I came back

but to visit    not stay

not to be one with you

feeling pinched every day

      "Oh Donal    dear Donal

      for me you won't fall"

Your body of rubble

and muck municipal

      "Oh Donal    darling Donal

      love your lover's lane

      your old street loves you

      lie down with her again"

He slipped into bed

eyes rimmed with red

soft his eyelids closing

watched the lamp shade

soar   then glide

its movement hypnotizing

inhaled the anesthetic air of bed

his mind swam buoyant

blood bubbling with oxygen

the ceiling like a skin

opening it pores

& breathing in

               9

Street:

Ah Donal dear, wait until you're a bit older

you'll find yourself a nice girl and settle down

you haven't been in love yet have you?

not really in love      well go get yourself

a nice girl    get married    have children

Donal:

Nah nah     wot I want is a mistress

so I can get IT regular

Street:

Ooh    that's all you think about - bleeding sex

but I never get any of it DO I...you never give ME

anything DO YOU

Donal:

Wot!  you want me to lie down   give you

a bit of finger down the drain

'ere you are then    how's that?

tickles you up a bit does it

garn you randy old bitch     get your knees up

                 10

          Pivot    

Close your eyes

take convalescense

somewhere at summer solstice

a man may stand on his shadow

courage  don't weep

though a million cells broken

the moon shines in puddles

there is water in the womb

          *

Lens swivels

world spins

world turns over

sand drops down the glass

laughing knockabout tumbledown jest

in ramshackle kitchens of ramshackle rooms

while the wind shuddered once

windows trembled

the halflife of happiness halving itself

Hurry

          *

At 9B, below footsteps in a street

in dark shadows of limitless recess

rafia matting fraying under bare feet

sitting at a table    drunk to excess

writing poetry without great success

red lamplight in the windows of a door

melancholy guitar    its strings caress

an urban wilderness    bricks for the poor

          *

Because mingled strands of our thoughts

rewound themselves to a slip knot

that lay easy

because words framed lies

cars collided in mid sentence

sounds queued up for the ear

and the ear ignored them

preferring a simpler vibration

of blood

because each day swallowed more

from the stock in the cellar

that may soon empty because of grapes

left un-plucked on the vine

because lovers made love

on creaking brass bedsteads

and by-product rubbers got thrown

into a cardboard box under the bed

rhat month may have been a record number of lies

                11

Lines: Anti-Beckett

He who propels life forward to death

moaning by day and by night

to blind tides and deaf skies

pushing a wheelchair towards us

We hide from the knowledge in his eyes

for we want life to go on forever

and the sun to be always shining

and even if it rains      

we want a rainbow

                12

          END

Stopping at the milestone

in Kent's dull dawn

looking back Donal

counted miles he had gone

no sign he had been

in those streets so long

 Richard M Russell © Dick Russell

                             2025