London Town

London can be a lonely place at night

When walking around you see the lost ones plight

You can hear the occasional scream of a possible fight

As people wander around after closing time

You see the lights flickering from neon signs

Occasional cars pass and dazzle and blind

Your sight as you try to process this night life in your mind

You can pass the woman on the street turning tricks

Or see the desperation of those with drug habits

And all around you can see the dark walls

Of the once long ago Victorian buildings that seem to call

Out names of those long gone as if they remember

Those souls who were once started out as sparks

Before becoming dying embers

And which faded away into ash

I swear I can sometimes hear those voices here from the past

As I walk down the narrow dark alleys and then start to pass

Along the length of the river Thames

The rippling waves also hide secret stories beneath them

Everywhere there is a story to tell

London can be for you a place of heaven or hell

It depends if you live on the streets or within the grand houses

The night around me it carouses

Within my head distantly with its rhymes and it’s songs

But only in burst that aren’t long

Before the peace of the night it returns

Like a spectre or a ghost from the past

Chilling my bones and leaving me feeling aghast

At the history and all the stories and tales

Of old London Town and the sound of its laughter and wails

Of the bright lights and dark places

The celebrations and desperate faces

Two sides of life so extreme that can be both uplifting but can also be mean

Especially to those floundering down on their knees which are there to see.

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