Let's remember

This time last year a number of us were finalising the publication of 'From Here To Here', the book of 26's Circle Line project, written by 30 of our writers, including Simon Armitage. On 7 July, the day the book went for printing, other events hit the Circle Line and London Underground. To mark the anniversary, and to remember those who died and suffered, we reprint Simon Armitage's extraordinary poem 'KX' which opens 'From Here To Here'.

KX

Northerner, this is your stop. This longhouse
of echoing echoes and sooted glass,
this goth pigeon hangar, this diesel roost
is the end of the line. Brace and be brisk,
commoner, carry your heart like an egg
on a spoon, be fleet through the concourse, primed
for that point in time when the world goes bust,
when the unattended holdall or case
unloads its cache of fanaticized heat.

Here’s you after the fact, found by torchlight,
being-less, heaped, boned of all thought and sense.
The camera can barely look. Or maybe,
just maybe, you live. Here’s you on the News,
shirtless, minus a limb, exiting smoke
to a backdrop of red melt, onto streets
paved with gilt, begging a junkie for help.

posted by jim @ 7:03 PM