Wanstead drew me over and over into its basic poetry
into its turn the corner of the street expanse
its ground mist broken by the sun
into its gravel ponds
its wind bludgeoning through oaks
with its footballers calling for the pass
its seagulls digging in the studded earth
its mock Gothic spire at the edge of Aldersbrook
its kite flyers and model airplanes
its ground nesting birds
the gall wasps, the spring gentian
with its skylarks playing hideout in the clouds
with its wetness through your toes
with its view of London’s stickleback – Canary Wharf, the City and the Shard
its coot and moorhen calligraphy through pondweed
rooks and herons up in island branches
its ticks, its gorse bush poppings
its long grass burnt in summer like savannah
its playground with its goose shit
drew me into its coffee hut, its boundering off the lead dogs
its beech, its fir, its apple
its bluebell woods marked out with log bark paths
its ornamental ponds
its crumbling fenced-off folly
its mud oh with its mud
with its rats both dead and alive
its back of the garages guarded by Smartwater
its green woodpecker and parakeets
its walk home from folk gigs with phones as torches
with those two firecrest flaring in the thicket
its purple sun behind the tower blocks
with its end of the street-ness
and the wind changing over and over
© Michael McKimm
Picture 10148701, photograph, 1930s, image copyright Mary Evans / Mustograph Collection
Michael McKimm grew up near the Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland and now lives in Forest Gate, east London. His poetry publications include the collection Still This Need (Heaventree Press, 2009) and pamphlet Fossil Sunshine (Worple Press, 2013). He works for the Geological Society of London and has collaborated with geoscientists on a number of projects, events and exhibitions, including Written in the Rocks, which was funded by Arts Council England. Michael is the editor of the anthologies MAP: Poems after William Smith’s Geological Map of 1815 and The Tree Line (both Worple Press) and his poetry has featured in anthologies including Dear World and Everyone In It: New Poetry in the UK (Bloodaxe, 2013) and The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland (Blackstaff, 2016). www.michaelmckimm.co.uk
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