The Night People

Blue neon clock fingers sneaking past the stars

Extinguish the last fuse of day.

Through black rain-wet streets rush bleary-eyed cars

Stuffed with revellers drunk and blasé.

In Soho stained waiters bang dustbins around,

Commissionaires yawn into tweed,

As empty and echo hose yesterday down

The night people slide inbetween.

Sallow dudes with spotlight eyes

Pour laughter sauce on ice.

Velvet dolls with brandied smiles

Lean close with mouths of dice.

The tunnel band plays studded drums

And spits electric spears

As the dancers kick like marionettes

Through the smokescreen atmospheres.

Dance on pale harlequins of night

Lest you scratch your gilded fears.

The paint peeling tea stall by Charing Cross bridge

Attracts lonely moths to its lamps.

In corners of archways on a benches oak ridge

Lie newspapered wine-softened tramps;

Pushed on by policemen and queueing for soup

Evading the world's outstretched glove,

But one pain they share with the jewelled ghost troupe

Both searching for some kind of love.

Gargoyles chewing on dead cigars

Stack chips in crystal halls.

Sequinned starlets scent their breasts

Till the single finger calls.

Rhinestoned strippers strut and peel

For the cochineal stockade.

The gangster roars his crew applauds

At the punter's fun parade;

All worshiping the jaws of night

Where the piper is never paid.

Champagned freaks in denim shirts

Snort energy in spoons.

Laughing girls ask zodiac signs

But their eyes sing lonely tunes.

It's four o'clock the wine is flat

The coffee has long gone cold,

The rustlers pay their last respects

Then drive away blindfold . . . . . .

Dead the hollow dreams of night

Turn grey dissolve . . . .dissolve . . .

Leaves dervish dance on the coiled wind of dawn

Whisper . . . . The curtain lifts . . . . Day

News vans and lorries with oranges roar

From Fleet Street to Ealing Broadway.

The first bus with charladies stops in the Strand

Milk vans and post vans cruise by.

At Euston commuters, shop girls and striped suiters,

Are jostling and milling, cars hooting, brakes shrilling