Speccie Comp Two Bridges
 

Competition: Two bridges


SATURDAY, 26TH NOVEMBER 2011

In Competition No. 2723 you were invited to supply an updated version of Wordsworth’s ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’.
A reading of the sonnet on Westminster Bridge in September 2002, to commemorate its 200th anniversary, was all but drowned out by the roar of the rush hour. A far cry, then, from Wordsworth’s view of a slumbering city, ‘silent, bare’, dominated by St Paul’s, with fields to the south. It was described thus in a diary entry by the poet’s sister: ‘The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke & they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly with such a pure light that there was even something like the purity of one of nature’s own grand Spectacles.’
The list of unlucky losers is long: John Beaton, Mike Morrison, Josephine Boyle, Dominica Roberts, Jane Dards and Roger Theobald narrowly missed out.W.J. Webster takes the bonus fiver while his fellow winners are rewarded with £25 each.

Ahead that fairground Ferris wheel, the Eye,
Flash relic of the dull Millennium bash;
Defiant in its size, unlovely, brash,
Bowed version of those blocks that prod the sky.
Back here, a clock tower and a ‘palace’ lie,
Where Wordsworth’s vision had long turned to ash:
A madly mediaevalist mish-mash,
Cold-moulded from a visi-Gothic die.
Between the olde and new the Thames still flows,
As settled in its course as in its name,
But little on or by it now, God knows,
To that astonished gaze would look the same.
But what has gone — as all that’s transient goes —
We still can picture in the sonnet’s frame.
W.J. Webster

This sight I fear is less fair than it was;
Packed pavements, crush and rush and push and shove,
Crowds spilling from the kerb; while up above
On constant watch police helicopters buzz,
Sly, prying, spying sky-eyes looking down
Upon the London Eye bedecked with pods
That swallow queues and lift them to the gods
To catch a bird’s eye view of London town;
Below the tourist cruise boats ply and probe
The choppy waters — skipper at the wheel,
Loudspeakers spluttering out their muffled spiel
On city sights — the Wobbly Bridge, the Globe;
Behind me endless traffic roars and beeps
Beneath a darkening sky as dusk ignites
A riotous blaze of blinding, dazzling lights,
Dear God, why is it London never sleeps!
Alan Millard

William, if you were living in our time
You’d see huge boats unlike the boats of yore,
Moving without the aid of sail or oar;
Though whether you would celebrate in rhyme
The scene before you must remain in doubt;
And while you gazed on roof and tower and steeple
At any time of day you would see people,
Just loitering or hurrying about;
And looking up see curious vessels there
Which fly above the domes on Tower Hill.
The water-men are gone, and where they were
Are massive pleasure boats. All’s changed, dear Will.
The city has an unfamiliar air
And yet that mighty heart is beating still.
Gerard Benson

Earth must have many things to show more fair
Than London underneath this drizzling sky,
Its garish gherkin and its circus eye
And puddled dirty litter everywhere.
Across the bridge the boldly cycling mayor
Negotiates the traffic— who knows why?
Above, great thundering aircraft multiply;
Below, the river’s stench pollutes the air.
Never did greedy planners fail to keep
A city’s character so shamelessly;
We watch Olympic preparations creep
Across the burial ground of history.
The sight would make the ghost of Wordsworth weep:
There is so little left of majesty.
Alanna Blake

Earth sadly chokes in London’s poisoned air
And on the Bridge the lions in winter lie
Toothless and timid. Strangers who pass by
Frown on the monstrous wheel that seems to stare
In pointless wonder at the buildings where
Democracy once sat. The city sky
Looks down on homeless hordes that groan and sigh
While feral youngsters rampage here and there.
Better to walk Westminster Bridge at night
(If one is brave enough to venture out)
And see the city in another light
So to pretend she still possesses clout.
For darkness over former pomp and might
Allows the heart to entertain some doubt.
Max Ross

Earth hath not anything to show more vile:
Dull is the salmon, floating dead and rank
Upon the Thames, polluted bank to bank.
The City traders scurry to defile
The morning’s beauty, stealing with a smile
From those whom they would never deign to thank.
The fields are gone, the sky is dark and dank,
St Paul’s obscured by many a loathsome pile.
Never ‘The Sun’ so titillated hordes
With naked women — cheap, indeed, the thrill!
The bankers calmly pull their puppets’ cords,
And ruin nations at their own sweet will.
Dear God! The very Houses (Commons, Lords)
Fester with politicians, lying still!
Brian Allgar