Notting Hill Carnival

August bank holiday in Notting Hill,
Stuck in a two-thirds empty sushi bar,
I drink the cheapest soup dish on the menu
And discuss tactics: entry points, how far,
To walk or haggle, Who’s Who. Then the bill
Comes, and I pay. Pay cash, says Jimmy, then you
Won’t waste your cash on beer. We all decide
Vaguely to join the one-way crowd outside,

And it begins, this packed conveyor belt
Of costumes, crowded streets, and creditcards.
Scaffolded billboards boast of low gun-crime,

Lounge in the packed heat. We keep walking. Where’s
The actual carnival? I ask, as out
Of sight, down Portobello Road, a float
Trawls sullenly away through a tired shout
Of casual-clothed spectators. Shrugs and stares
Follow, uselessly. Noise sticks in my throat.
I think the carnival is further down,
Says Jimmy, so we push on further down

And still find nothing but wide public squares
Fist-tight with people, absolutely rammed
With immigrants, foodstuffs for sale, light beer
In plastic pitchers. Half-sloshed in a crammed
Chain pub, I stand a round, and repeat: Where’s
The carnival? As if it might appear
Ex nihilo. Our drunken thoughts expand
Beyond the Standing Room Only bar, and

I think of China, rebuilt: all the bored
World elsewhere. But by now the carnival
Has swelled into an aimless weary push
Of people searching for a carnival
That isn’t there. The strangers I ignored
Were the whole show. Tracksuited mothers shush
Their state-schooled children, eating parodies
Of ethic food (jerk chicken, rice and peas,

A saleable familiarity
Of brandnames: Burger King, McDonalds), and
Litter the streets with ordinary trash
Behind them. It goes on. Policemen stand
Luminous-jacketed, blocking a crash
Of mopeds. T-shirts flaunt the slogan: FREE
AT LAST. A random and indifferent crowd
Heaves on, and all the vomit-coloured loud

Distraction trick is emptying, as if
It never happened. Condom-sellers pack
Their cash and disappointment in white vans,
And drive home. The brash upbeat heartattack
Disintegrates, through thinning reeks of spliff
And Cuba Libre, facepaint and steel pans,
And, anticlimaxed, its rushed business
Lulls, until the moral of the story is:

Things cost their own cost, and they take the time
They take. Stuck in a Bakerloo line station,
Hours later, with no money left, we wile
Boredom away with tedious conversation.
A train comes, with its endless travelling mime
Of billboard advertising, and I think I’ll
Discover something final. (The thought proves
Mistaken.) Doors hiss shut, and the train moves,

And nothing happens, so I think of China
Distantly: sprawling red industrial host
Of the Olympic Games. (One World. One Dream.)
Its immense ceremonies shout a host
Of hyperbolic untruths, about China,
And faith, and progress. My own small thoughts seem
Irrelevant. A hail of imprecise
Rain taps the windows like flung grains of rice.

BUS No. 205

Commuters at the bus-stop stare
   At time "paid in arrears"
Transfixed on the same distance where
   The 205 appears

The 205 the 205
   MILE END to PADDINGTON
Its layers of compound grime survive
   The blasting of the rain

Wheels heave its doubledecker ark
   Its diesel engines thrum
The MILE END ROAD is mottled like
   A drained aquarium

Unshaved Executives await
   A lunchtime press of hands
As punctured bike-tyres half deflate
   By empty coffeestands

Delivery lorries haul their cheap
   Real Ale to THE MASH TUN
As hooded pigeons scram and creep
   Like thieves to FARRINGDON

Snide barristers from BOW support
   Divorce for wife and widow
Poor ANGEL leans its wearied thought
   And forehead on the window

Terse rain is wiped from car windshields
   And timetabled en route
The famous graves at BUNHILL FIELDS
   Lie manicured and mute

Blue tourist plaques encrust the streets
   Stiff and barnacled and numb
My hard and hammering heart repeats
   Its brag to Kingdom Come:

“What trammelled standstill weighs my head
   With paralysed routine?
Why do the traffic lights turn red?
   What does the weather mean?”