The Ballad of St Giles Central
known locally as Legoland
Say, have you been to Legoland
and seen its mighty blocks
that thrust above our old St Giles
like multi-coloured cocks?
St Giles, that sanctuary of the poor,
in holy terror cowers
under the brash and braying roar
of Renzo Piano’s towers.
Legoland, oh Legoland,
that monument to pride,
where the poor are kept in the shadows,
the rich on the sunny side.
St Giles, where poets’ babes were blessed,
where Tyburn jigsters stopped
and all their many sins confessed
before they faced the drop,
is bullied by the ballyhoo
of Renzo’s crass erection,
which turns an ancient high street to
a wind-blown intersection.
Legoland, oh Legoland,
that monument to graft,
where the rich live close to heaven’s door
and the poor by the air-con shaft.
We pray to the gods of just deserts
that plague pits will crack wide,
and Giles’s buzzmen, lepers and tarts
will swarm from every side,
that the rookery will rise once more
and topple Piano’s piles,
then only honest thieves and whores
will dance in old St Giles.
Legoland, oh Legoland,
that monument to money,
where the poor endure, endure, endure
and the rich live on milk and honey.
Kathy grew up in Nottingham but has lived in London for the last forty years, most of that time in Seven Dials, where she looks after bollards and street signs. Her poems have appeared in Magma, The North, South Bank Poetry, Mslexia, a Vers Prize anthology and the soon to be published Emma Press anthology on female friendship.