Threnody on the Death of a Street Lamp on Lollard Street, SE11
O noble lantern ’neath whose kindly fire
my love and I did oft together lark –
our bodies, lust-engorged, ’twined in desire –
why hast thou gone and left us in the dark?
Sweet Eddystone who steered us to our beds,
your detumescent stem now sapless lies;
and night-whelmed waifs must tilt their A-to-Zs
and hope to catch some starlight from the skies
while nap-skulled Vauxhall hard-men, heads low bowed,
remember, as they blanch at your snapped stalk,
how that hot wick so lately o’er them towered
to lick with light each lass o’ Lambeth Walk.
Unlicked, my love beside me wraps her hair
around a finger as I contemplate
how you and I are something of a pair,
sad Pharos of the Ethelred Estate.
And, while I muse upon my own lamp’s lack
and how my once full beam now mostly dips,
my love eyes yonder chimney’s upright stack,
a wistful smile of longing on her lips.
Cameron Balloons (poet)