How Silly of Me to Have You, London
🍄️ Personal poetry about the 21st of June.
︎ Third Place Winner for London Society’s third year of Love Letters to London. Poetry Category.
It’s the 21st of June.
My fingers pluck on your golden strings of harp sun,
Upside down on Greenwich hill with browning skin,
On a £16 Amazon chequered blanket mimicking our cherry cheeks,
We sit on the side with mud and wine stains, still, from Hampstead Heath,
Us closed fists, unravel.
My clammy flesh melts into a telescope,
My left eye pinches, the right cradles your old and new,
Positioned parades of clouds tickles glassy Canary Wharf,
David Hockney painted yellow rays comically prance around the Old Royal,
That stranger sits in solitude with his orange raincoat,
Just the hood, hugging his head, muting the curious cadence of school children at the observatory.
London is in the palm of my hands.
A final kiss between my four fingernails and the back of my thumb,
A vignette hums into my handmade eyepiece,
The yellow bleeds into black, the image buzzes into sweet nothings,
Saying goodbye to you and my pockets full of the 21st of June,
One more time.
Nestled comfortably on my white headboard 79 miles away,
My love for this moment and you is scribbled onto dotted journal paper,
The 4 colours in my all-in-one Biro pen would fail to capture such silly beauty,
In a chipping silver baroque frame, I hold you forever.
Us closed fists, revel.
I can’t wait to see you again.
© Shania J. Saldi
My fingers pluck on your golden strings of harp sun,
Upside down on Greenwich hill with browning skin,
On a £16 Amazon chequered blanket mimicking our cherry cheeks,
We sit on the side with mud and wine stains, still, from Hampstead Heath,
Us closed fists, unravel.
My clammy flesh melts into a telescope,
My left eye pinches, the right cradles your old and new,
Positioned parades of clouds tickles glassy Canary Wharf,
David Hockney painted yellow rays comically prance around the Old Royal,
That stranger sits in solitude with his orange raincoat,
Just the hood, hugging his head, muting the curious cadence of school children at the observatory.
London is in the palm of my hands.
A final kiss between my four fingernails and the back of my thumb,
A vignette hums into my handmade eyepiece,
The yellow bleeds into black, the image buzzes into sweet nothings,
Saying goodbye to you and my pockets full of the 21st of June,
One more time.
Nestled comfortably on my white headboard 79 miles away,
My love for this moment and you is scribbled onto dotted journal paper,
The 4 colours in my all-in-one Biro pen would fail to capture such silly beauty,
In a chipping silver baroque frame, I hold you forever.
Us closed fists, revel.
I can’t wait to see you again.
© Shania J. Saldi