Tuesday 3rd January

ON THE RUN-UP:
“Ladies & Gentlemen, don’t delay the trains. Please keep clothing & luggage
clear of the doors”. A cartoon cat assassin grinned from a billboard
at the crowd dressed in black & grey. All heads bowed, everyone reading
the free papers or staring at the ground. A golden whisper rose from
the tourists photographing one another outside HMV, planning to go down
in history, capturing the memory on tiny plastic cameras. There was
violent poetry stickered on walls & a giant blue-faced monkey sprayed
on the roof above a cellphone shop the day the girls broke away from
the crowd & slipped into lingerie shops on the run-up to the big day.
(K)