london belongs to me

« East Coast Gothick, Part II | Main | scorched earth »

March 22, 2004

Investment Potential

This is a shoutout to Heronbone, all-recording tapehead with interesting playback problems, lonely bleeding dictionary, a twitcher with no travelcard, the dark eye of Dog's Isle. And that's because it involves both birdwatching and german poetry. Coming home, I saw a heron standing in a pool on top of a hill that overlooks the atlantic ocean. I braked the van as quietly as possible (ie not very) and inevitably the bird dragged itself back into the sky in that unfeasibly slow way that they have. And I thought simultaneously of this poem, of HB, and of my own sightings along the Limehouse Cut, swans, herons, guillemots, there used to be a nest of foxes opposite our flat, squatting in an abandoned concrete hut (never heard them at night though, now I hear foxes a lot, terrifying sound of their shrieking, an apparent mixture of horrific pain and wild exhilaration). Went through London on the journey from east to west coast, for a bit of a nostalgia kick, and saw that Chrisp street is being fucking gentrified after all, a huge tinted-glass gimcrack apartment building is rising up opposite All Saints church, and the previously scummy shopping area has started to sprout a tinted glass (don't blame me if its repetitive) 'flagship store'. The pioneers have arrived. We always had a sense when living there that things had not been left to rot merely through neglect, that somewhere, people were waiting, people powerful and rich enough to be in no hurry...until the vector of decline, unchecked by either hopeless indigeneous population or nominal civic authorities, had reached far enough to raise the profit margin to trigger point and then...whoosh. Wipe out what's left of the native population, kill 'em or send 'em to Canvey Island, what's the diff, a nice lump sum for their crumbling concrete hovels (more than it's worth, mate) and they'll disappear from the scene. It's all a question of resource, of stamina. Some crumbled...couldn't psychically afford to stay, to sit tight for the big payoff, moved out. Some wouldn't, or couldn't leave, became habituated to the filth, and fair's fair, they'll get theirs, but you can bet they'll be getting comparatively little compared to the profit-forecasts of those who control the future.

Puppet-masters work from outside. Remote control investments: nomadic, autonomous currencies that come home swollen, years later, no questions asked. Oh yes, they can afford to wait, they're already in the future, they can sit out the siege in comfort. And now they own a bit more of the future.

There's probably an heritage centre committee already...museum of east end life replaces Somerfield's; animatronic child-batting single mums, pie-and-mash pencil sharpeners in the museum shop, misty photos of beleaguered-looking oldies with their hard, withered leathery faces sitting by the marketplace with their cuppas amongst the broken bottles, dripping buckets of bloom pinned to pub facades and the recorded sound of guard dog snarls echoing down the canal path, bouncing from wall to wall in search of human contact.

Did you know that the real meaning of to invest is to besiege?

At least the river will know their demise, will watch every single pane of tinted glass crushed to dust, mixed with the toxic blood of early-heartattack bankers, sleighing backwards down the mudbanks on the flimsy unfolded magnolia walls of their boxy apartments, the chirp of rigor-mortis-claw-mobiles ebbing to damp gurgle and final, merciful, silent release. Carried away down the creek and out of existence. Because no matter how extensive the portfolio, no matter how comprehensive the risk management strategies, the river can always wait longer.

The Swan

The misery that through the still-undone
must pass, bound and heavily weighed down,
is like the awkward walking of the swan

And death, where we no longer comprehend
the very ground on which we daily stand,
is like his anxious letting-himself-go

into the water, soft against his breast,
which now how easily together flows
behind him in a little wake of waves...
while he, infinitely silent, self-possessed,
and ever more mature, is pleased to move
serenely on his majestic way.

Posted by robin at March 22, 2004 02:06 AM

Comments

Posted by: undercurrent at March 22, 2004 07:22 PM