Autumn in Hammersmith

33 CHALLIS CHRIS CHALLIS AUTUMN IN HAMMERSMITH Indian summer in the West of London Sun striking gold off the dray horse droppings Dispersing in the traffic. Sandstone pinnacles cantilevering by Either side of Hammersmith bridge. Dreck on a dappled tide and the silhouettes Of hunting poodles and Weimeraners On riverbanks in and out Of the beaten gold sun on the water's surface. Autumn launches a pub smashing a bottle of champagne And there is talk of foreign capitals, Budding careers, lost causes. Wide-bodied planes drone distantly out of the sun The radio is wistful, sudden views turning street corners Come out of old dreams. The ribs of the dead barge rise from the silt. The year glides as gracefully towards its end As an old ballerina retiring at the right time, and Autumn Looks inwards for a still centre to the vortex For mellow and tinted leaves drifting on gentle breezes For haunting melodies and regrets as soft as a sigh Finding instead no winsome past, no pleasure In the pinnacles of summer, the remembered ambitions of spring, But an in-trav which never empties, and the cracked and lonely ringing Of a churchbell in a drowned village, A sense of the loss of what was not, after all, that important, And equally denies both regrets and satisfaction. ...