The New London Poets

Passages in quotation without permission from: Olympic Park Compulsory Purchase Order; Olympic Delivery Agency, 2007 The Peasants' Revolt, May-June 1381; Sir John Froissart.

hackney cut Seabirds dot the banks of the reservoir, gulls spot the sky which opens out above Walthamstow Marshes, one-hundred and eighty degrees of blue wonder, gull-spotted, louring clouds
Development in the area bound: to the north by the Eastway (part), A12 East Cross Route (part) the River Lea, the northern and eastern boundary of East Marsh, New Spitalfields Market, Ruckholt Road and Temple Mill Lane; to the east by the Temple Mills Lane, the Lea Valley Line Overground Railway Line, land to the east of Leyton Road, Angel Lane, part of the Great Eastern Line until Stratford Regional Station, the Lea Valley Overground Railway Line and a section of the northern part of the Stratford development site; to the south by part of the northern boundary of the Stratford City development site, the southern section of the rail loop which connects the North London Line and the Great Eastern Line, the main line railway and land on the eastern banks of the Waterworks River, the Greenway (part), High Street Stratford (A11), Rick Roberts Way and including land to the east of Canning Road, west of the North London Line, and south and west of West Ham Station, the land between Bow Back River and Barbers Road and part of the Great Eastern Line; to the west by the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach Road (part) the River Lea and the River Lea Navigation (Hackney Cut) and land on the western bank of the River Lea to the east of the A12 East Cross Route.

Rails abut the canal on raised, cobbled piers that threaten to unseat the beautiful blonde on her red bicycle braving tramtracks and weather and all. Coots feet flap lazily, shake water from beaded grass blades, been-in-the-bath-too-long feet; woodsmoke from canal boats scents the air, reflects in the oil-stained, litter strewn surface. Two Graffitists compete: Sweet Toof versus ODC, I reserve judgment, allow the Olympic Devilry Authority to decide.

an anecdote: one of the few occasions I visited a Thursday evening reading at the Calder Books Shop on the Cut, Waterloo, I heard an actor - plummy, precise - reading Beckett, which was it, one of the later, the last? A Beckett prose narrative - a woman in a room, in a house, in a bleak place - rocks, bare earth and grass, and though he was putting things into this room - a key on a nail by the door, a trapdoor, I suppose a chair, a shawl, this woman, it wouldnt be hard to find out which piece it was, although he was putting things into this room, necessary things - floorboards, whitewash, walls, doors, a door, windows or a window, it seemed to me he was emptying it - a man writing a woman in an empty room removing, trying to remove everything from an empty room, begrudging the presence of anything unnecessary, but stopping short, stopping short of the void. So that everything in there was itself, only itself, unreferential. An amazing display of emptying, yet impossible, having put pen to paper impossible to empty that room. To empty a room of itself. I must have nodded-off for a while, I woke gently near the end of the monologue, not attracting too much attention to myself. It ended, as these things do, end. The audience then proceeded, tastelessly, to interrogate those few objects left, allowed to remain in the room. I hate to put this down - the nail four nails, the key Christ, the woman poor Samuels mother, interrogated, they interrogated a poor dead mans mother in an empty room, added tons of verbiage, interpretation, to a beautifully empty room, forced a world round a wilderness, defiled a place as bare and necessary as the moon, as I am almost at risk of doing myself!

hilly fields blues i) Im in the park where you burned your skin so badly it peeled off, the flakes stuck to the sheets by our sweat your skin so white underneath the shed scales dissolved into our flesh and, mixed with other secretions adhered to everything. Thus you are generous even in adversity. ii) Im in the park where we met after your prolonged absence an episode - I was surprised at how old you looked, your breasts loose under someone elses grey t-shirt your hair and skin dry, after waiting for phone calls avoiding your empty flat (where I guessed dust settled things sweated, rotted and shot in your kitchen) when your phone calls were unreturnable your whereabouts unknown your health - I assumed - fragile your skin burned. At first I didnt recognise you. iii) your nape I recognised beneath bob-cut hair as one I have loved. Without recognising you, or that we followed you and your son, in the High Street, knowing that I had loved.

the invention of the wheel

that the London Development Agency (the Agency) on 2 March 2007 made a general vesting declaration under section 4 of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 (the Act) vesting the land described in the Schedule to this notice (the Land) in themselves as from the end of the period of 28 days from the date on which the services of the notices required by section 6 of the Act is completed.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

The Agency will in due course tell you the date on which the service of the notices was completed. On the first day after the end of the period referred to in the first paragraph of this notice (the Vesting Date) the Land, together with the right to enter upon and take possession of it, will vest in the Agency.

on the slate tiled roof of the beach at Penrhyn sharp outlined by its own shadow the wheel awaits its discovery
Also, on the Vesting Date the Acts providing for compensation will apply as if, on the date on which the general vesting declaration was made (namely 2 March 2007), a notice to treat had been served on every person whom the Agency could have served such a notice (other than any person entitiled to an interest in the Land in respect of which such a notice had actually been served before the Vesting Date and any person entitled to a minor tenancy or a long tenancy which is about to expire. These expressions are defined in Appendix A to this notice).

a lone pigeon follows its dice-roll of tossed olive-oil soaked crust

If the Land includes any land in which there is a minor tenancy or a long tenancy which is about to expire, the right of entry will not be exercisable in respect of that land unless, after serving a notice to treat in respect of that tenancy, the Agency having served on every occupier of any of the land in which a tenancy subsists a notice stating that

down the road cross the river back home not for all the gelded cannabis in Kent

Appendix A Minor tenancy means a tenancy for a year or from year to year, or any lesser interest. Long tenancy which is about to expire in relation to a general vesting declaration, means a tenancy granted for an interest greater than a minor tenancy, but having on the vesting date a period still to run which is not more than the specified period (that is to say, such period, longer than one year, as may for the purposes of this definition be specified in the declaration in relation to the land in which the tenancy subsists).

deliver me from property and from the letting of property for money
In determining for the purposes of this subsection what period a tenancy still has to run on the vesting date it shall be assumed (a) that the tenant will exercise any option to renew the tenancy, and will not exercise any option to terminate the tenancy, then or thereafter available to him, (b) that the landlord will exercise any option to terminate the tenancy then or thereafter available to him.

deliver me from property and from the letting of property for money

camden head The clock says six-thirty zero hour, where the weight of the hands draws them, default setting, where and when I wait always on time. The brass plaque demands: no smoking at the bar. The customers careless of this scatter a snow of ash about their feet, and around them smoke rises in sunshine.
On Friday morning the rebels, who lodged in the square of St Catherines, before the Tower, began to make themselves ready. They shouted much and said, that if the King would not come out to them, they would attack the Tower, storm it, and slay all who were within. The King, alarmed at these menaces, resolved to speak with the rabble; he therefore sent orders for them to retire to a handsome meadow at Mile End, where, in the summertime, people go to amuse themselves, at the same time signifying that he would meet them there and grant their demands.

Coot circles flash in the green pool and webbed feet float a moment before disappearing pushing for the weedwebbed jungle. And the pale sunshine from the coots green mirror sparks concentric ripples as the bird does as it ought to: coot circles.