Going to Covent Garden? Attack from the south or the east.
The north-west approach is a gauntlet of living statues –
The danger comes not from the crowds (though they aren’t much use
either) – it’s from the malaise,
chilly as face-paint, that grows,
in your heart at the sight of these symbols of all that’s ceased

to live, of trails gone cold, and of flames become black matches.
And it’s not that their act’s as old-hat as spinning plates
that puts you in mind of the grave (though that too grates)
It’s that when these mimes pretend
to be petrified, they portend
gloom neverending for every last thing the light catches

– not ‘cos their cod-lichen look likens them to listing headstones
but because real statues, like tombs, all mark the point where
meaning was crushed into lesson, where the gorgon stare
of legislators made men
into logos to bless their campaign,
and not just the obvious squareful of Churchills and Gladstones,

but editioned-to-death authors whom put-upon teachers of English
CPR endlessly, popular songs played to mush!
Words too. The chime of a wrought truth, the rush,
hammered to cliché and swung
like a nail-stickled club at the young
(There’s something about them the wielders are keen to extinguish).

‘Don’t leave the heathens a bolthole of language or history!’
is the order that threads through our guardians like a bolt
of lightning, and lo, a Rushmore of touchstones is built.
‘Here are your heroes! Be proud
(they’re the only heroes allowed)!’
Then the fight to be next and the chorus of “Hardy! Kiss me!”