LONDON SMOGS, OLD AND NEW

Once a riverran

Like cord of grey churning muscle,

Through a valley

And a city.

Current rolling, pulsing and twisting muddy waters

To the sea and back again at the same time

Running with and against the tide,

Like the city, it never ceased,

On cold winter nights, it sweated mist;

But, if the night was still,

The mist could not rise.

Every house in the city burnt a coal fire,

Nearly every adult who lived there smoked,

And then there was a time

When all the cars, buses and lorries

Smoked too.

Smog was born

And the mist and smog embraced each other

And lay down like satisfied lovers

In a sleeping yellow embrace

Above the city,

Smothering breath and life in a poisonous blanket

So every still night when the smog laid down

Hundreds died beneath.

“Give us clean air!”, the people cried

“Stop the coalfires!,

And clean the car exhausts!

Stop smoking! Cut carbon monoxide!”

Then the old smog, made illegal died,

And fewer people did.

But death was just resting for a decade or two,

Then it smiled and said:

“I’ll find a way to return,

And choke the life from your lungs and heads;

 I’ll make a finer blanket now

Than the smog of old

And when the sun is bright

And the air is still,

I’ll weave a cloth of car fumes,

And light

And lay it over the city

So that they’ll gasp for breath and cough in vain,

Again and again,

Just like they did when my smog was thick

My clear killing veil

Will hang invisible above the city

So they’ll still die for me

As the river rolls on and on

And passes the poisoned people by.