Inspired by a visit to the Wetherspoons of this name in Camden, and a visit to Wallace collection…
Across the sticky, ale-stained tables play
Out myriad dramas of the every day
Like those, perhaps, depicted by the Dutch
Old Masters, with such acuity portrayed;
Young couples navigating their first dates –
Him laughing a little much too long and loud,
Her checking her appearance with great care –
Some lively theatregoers in a crowd
With early drinks to help the evening flow;
Philosophers debating the offside rule
And whether VAR should’ve intervened
Or if the referee was simply fooled;
A mother with her not quite teenage kids
Before the awkward, independent years,
While hidden by a pillar, some scruffy youth
With headphones on, eats through a scraggy beard.
Within this ever changing tableau, you
And I are also actors passing through,
Part of the city’s endless, countless throng
In which I need to stick right close to you.
The writings of Revd Tim Buckley 