Capital Crime - poem

       







Before

After










I used to love London but find my heart broken anew each time I visit it these days as more and more of its historic heart is torn out. Photographs on this posting illustrate just one example of the recent loss of a landmark building, which not even listing could save in the face of corporate greed. Regent Palace Hotel was once Europe's largest hotel (1,028 rooms) and a listed example of art nouveau in the heart of Piccadilly Circus.

Capital Crime

Attacked and beaten to death by a gang of wrecking balls

And mechanical creatures with pulverising jaws

Confident hydraulics with killer pincers

Crumple windowframes. Tear flesh wounds in the walls

Excavators scoop out any cowering cellars

‘Hello. Is that the Police?

Come quickly. London is being murdered
By monster machine thugs.

Quick, Quick, there’s no time to lose!’

Buildings minding their own business

Which can’t fight back, are under attack

History is becoming history

Robbed of its ancestry

Everything is a site

Even the sights.

Sold off to the highest bidders

To leave only property developer winners

The skyline is now a sighline

Give the tourists refunds

There’s nothing to see here!

London is undone

©LS King 2018

New building below with the b/s name of Quadrant 3, Air W1, as if it were some form of alien spacecraft that landed. Perhaps it is...