The Tower 24 – 1
1: Here is a poem about a tower
It’s not the tower the poets spoke of
Built of brown stone, with a round
Squat turret, where one can pace
And pronounce from the battlements
2: Here is a poem about a tower
It’s not the tower I leaned in when
Little or the one I lived in back in 91
When I was oh so much younger then
Younger than before. With parents.
3: Here is a poem about a tower
It’s not the tower I looked out of
Or smarted from one Baltic spring
It was freezing and I was cold;
The rockets blazed in a fiery ring
7: Here is a poem about a tower
Who speaks about its residents
Does not speak of a president
Or even a precedent in the numbers
Of people left in a burning slumber
8: Here is a poem about a tower
Old neighbours and non-presidents
Huddled together, they managed I hope
To muddle and cuddle through
I doubt very much they could cope.
9: Here is a poem about a tower
An Italian doctor phoned home
And said, “Goodbye, Mama. Ciao.”
She did not have much more time
For dolcelatte cheese and a glass of wine.
13: Here is a poem about a tower
Where the arguments will go back
And forth about the abuses
They will have reasons, no doubt
We all need sometimes excuses
14: Here is a poem about a tower
People say these things don’t happen,
They will fight to put it right,
But it doesn’t make up for
What can never be put right.
15: Here is a poem about a tower
They could not speak about
Because they felt awfully bad about
It went badly, sadly wrong
I am sorry they are now all gone.
19: Here is a poem about a tower
There’s Blood on the Bureaucrats'
Hands, a lady from the flat below
Watched her son’s burn on the 23rd floor.
She’s one of them: the urban poor.
20: Here is a poem about a tower
We can put labels on them –
The sofa surfers and refugees,
The pensioners and absentees –
Unofficial residents, no longer present
21: Here is a poem about a tower
Now they’re whipping it all up
In kitchen cups. What about the missing?
Some people are still wishing
They could turn back the clock
4: Here is a poem about a tower
It’s not the tower opposite
That blots out the sun, or where
Someone once held my brother
With a baseball bat and/or gun
5: Here is a poem about a tower
That was blackballed once
It didn’t wear a dinner jacket
But still went for a packet
No one dusted down the jacket
6: Here is a poem about a tower
I heard about an artist, a millennial
Who had an exhibition at the Biennial;
That was in Venice, where nothing
I hope did daunt or menace her.
10: Here is a poem about a tower
Two brothers hanged and harangued;
They hung up on each other
And never got to complete or repeat
The argument because it is spent now.
11: Here is a poem about a tower
Bo Peep lost his way in the dark
Won’t be playing again in the park,
His mother will think it’s all her fault
Poor Bo, poor sheep, poor lady.
12: Here is a poem about a tower
Everyone watching was asking how
And why as it lit up the sky; then
Some people began to cry this is not
Happening in Kensington or Chelsea.
16: Here is a poem about a tower
That was wrapped in cladding
Burnt to cinders amid the madding
Crowd; they had their reasons,
These midsummer murder seasons
17: Here is a poem about a tower
80 poor people and more died
Someone somewhere economised or lied;
It was a litany of errors that led
To the Blockbuster, Towering Inferno.
18: Here is a poem about a tower
That became a terrible, burning babel
McQueen didn’t get to attach the cable.
No one cares, not the Matrix,
Not the Contractor’s Cabal.
22: Here is a poem about a tower
Change the locks, re-wrap the cladding
Don’t think it won’t happen ever
Again – ever. It will, knowing Man
And his capacity to kick the can.
23: Here is a poem about a tower
I put a fiver in the collection box
And take my old jeans and shirts
To the village church. That will fox
Your conscience; you genius skiver!
24: Here is a poem about a tower
The skiver prays to God and his dog
New lives can be lived one day
Some will begin again but not today
Not by those who died then.