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Lambs Conduit Street
(published in Through the Woods, December 2005)
It is my favourite storm drain from which to hear the stories of the other London.
Last week, after a great storm, and long after midnight, there was a lull in the street traffic. I spread-eagled myself face down across the thick, iron drain cover. The roar from the secret river filled my mind.
I glanced up: 'A. France, Funeral Directors' glowed darkly. Opposite the undertaker, in a sort of graphic-designer shop, there was a photograph of ex-President Clinton playing the trumpet. Outside the shop, a young man, well dressed but vulgar, sucked a lollipop and tapped his lizard-skin looking creepers on the pavement.
The unspoilt top-half of the Georgian buildings seemed to slope into the street. Their many-paned windows were like ears straining to hear the music from the depths.
I heard sounds of water, like the splashing of a thousand dark fountains, flushing away the sins of London towards Coram Fields.
Where does this great spring come from?: is it a conduit of the old River Fleet that ran through 'Hole Bourne' and then into Fleet Street?
I pressed my ear closer to the drain and the grills branded a shape on my face. Miraculously, the street stayed empty. After twenty minutes of this therapy the pressures of the city dissolve. London's dark self flushes away into this underworld, leaving those on the surface unstained.
Sometimes I believe I hear a human scream down there: the last babblings of someone who has disappeared for ever.
From my back pocket, I took out 'The Magus', a card from the Aleister Crowley pack of tarot cards. I slid it between the grills of the drain, chanted the words of a Cabbalistic spell.
Two policemen turned the corner into Lambs Conduit Street. 'Hoy, you!'
My black clothes faded into the night as I sped away.
The left side of my face is still warm from memories: I put my ear to the seashell of the city and heard again its swirling heart.
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