Winchmore Hill station

From the open platform
Of Winchmore Hill station
In the bright May sunshine
The station building
Is not without charm,
With the lush vegetation
Trees and shrubs
Tall grass
Above the round edged top
Of the black brick wall
On which observe the tiny creatures
Molluscs and arthropods,
The grey and the black,
Woodlice, small slugs
Immobile, then moving
Stalk eyes waving.

The spotted shield bug, struts
Like a dim witted King's Road poser in
His snazzy clothes, past
The humble greenfly
With senile dementia
Standing, dying.

Like Chinese communists,
Large ants, reddy brown
Or black, scurry,
Collective, anonymous,
Carrying greenflies, dead or alive.
Two comrades meet
Touch antennae, part.
A black and a brown meet
Recoil, repelled, afraid.

Not here the joy of natural repose.
Each with business, or else
In idleness
Suggests not joy but the mundanity
Of human experience
Like a school playground,
Or some busy town
Where whites and blacks, workers and idlers
Struggle to survive.

For this life on the black brick wall top,
Conceived in its human equivalent,
To seem a delightful game,
One would need to snort cocaine.

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