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The Tube - by Joshua Gaskell
The Tube
The District Line (1868)
Sprawling, leafy branches green:
Lungs of the Underground.
From the poshest to the poorest –
All aboard! Eastbound!
Uncommonly amusing
Is Ealing after dark.
But Chiswick’s much the funnier –
The joke is, there’s no park!
Kew long for a Richmond gaff;
(Not named for nothing, no).
I only hope James Paine and Couse
Were bridging your cash-flow.
One, two, three, I’d turn ‘em green,
As they flow towards the creek;
But there’s some as wouldn’t stand for that –
Better that they reek.
There was a moat fed by those streams
In a park that’s really there,
But once you’re in the coming maze,
I doubt you’d really care.
Or cross the water once again;
Off off-Broadway so far,
(Like putting nowhere near the green),
And I don’t own a car.
Stay for tennis if it’s fair;
For strawberries and cream.
A new Fred Perry’s on the rise?
A happy, fleeting dream.
Now pulled aboard a roundabout
And wanged round half a turn:
Ken-Sloane-Vic-James-West-Bank-Temp-Friars –
When will I ever learn?
Blasted out at Tower Bridge,
That sullen Roman Wall.
There’s something about Whitechapel,
But Jack knows nowt at all.
Here’s the real hammer smith;
Bow down to Upton Park.
East’s less east than west is west;
Their bite’s worse than their bark.
‘Dave from Dagenham, how d’ya do?
My mate, right, owns a car.
He’s got the ‘ole world in ‘is ‘ands,
And ‘e lives in Upminsta’.’
The Circle Line (1884)
I edged along the Edgware Road;
Detected sexton breadless.
I tiptoed, arch, through marble jaws,
Despite hearty cries not headless.
I sleuthed alone round Sloane square,
Fiery and hirsute;
Embanked myself from queenly twelfth,
Red-marching in pursuit.
It wasn’t great at Portland Street;
Cod chicken at Smith’s field;
Execute revoltingly,
I picked a dilly and I kneeled.
I exploded on to Fabric Street,
And stoned the lesser James;
The canon didn’t need the dough,
So I padded round again.
The Northern Line (1890)
Toot the horn and womble forth,
The journey’s long ahead.
They’re common up the junction:
I (compass northward) sped.
At Chaucer’s chartists do the splits,
A Cumberlander’s team.
Pachydermic battlements,
Or stamp Ray’s sunset dream.
When bridges sink and streets grow old
The king’s annoyed henceforth:
His wife’s heart and his own pancreas
Hit the (angel of the) north.
Where milestones point, there too is rage,
At the price the talkies cost.
Burrow deep, spurred-on by heat,
But mind you don’t get lost.
Smoke lingers round your fingers now,
And come back from Camden Town,
Is a high-haired shy North country boy:
Good morning, taxi, frown.
For nails down Polari lumps
Henry’s got the cash.
The world’s best boss is never cross
And the Royal’s turned to ash.
Commuters of the world alight;
Edge no where near the road.
A kent-like town you might just find
To set-down your heavy load.
But how clamber down from lofty quiff?
How abseil down this well?
All aboard the Northern Line –
It takes you south as well.
The Central Line (1900)
All the waters of the Nile
Shall run red with blood.
The longest river of them all
Would stain worst should it flood.
Defend Old Auntie with thy life,
If shove comes to push.
I bought a knocked-off telly
From two blokes in Shepherd’s Bush.
The park in Never Netherland
Has two swanky gates,
But just the Queen (who sways serene)
Can meet the archon rates.
Jarndyce versus Jarndyce,
A suit you cannot wear –
Take a chance on Bond Street,
They’re more polite round there.
A fabled poet takes a stroll
From bank to dome and back –
I’d rather go to bad York Hall
And get both my eyes turned black.
What the Dickens, Mother Clap,
Have you not heard the news?
The river came before the street’s
Print fleetingly amused.
Poor Tom’s a-cold in Kirby’s house –
There’s spittle round his mouth,
And the international playboys
Are weaving way down south.
Stratford-upon-Central
Needs a sporting bard –
Blur your eyes and lift the stone
Of Leyton – it’s not hard!
To avoid the snare, fair loop around,
The red bridge matches the line;
Stop by at Adam’s Charm School,
For the rude Epping malign.
The Bakerloo Line (1906)
Let me take you by the hand
And lead you through the streets
Of Lambeth where the harlots curse
The appalling church of cheats.
The hapless poet’s helpless cry,
A hollow, bleak hoorah;
In hith voith a youthless fear:
“Fly the as-pi-di-ste-ra!”
Th’interchanges’ve yielded fruit;
North now to Regent’s Park –
The Regent’s Park as we should say
If we don’t wish to nark
The Prince who dressed-up Marylebone,
A gift from down the line,
Pinched from gnashing, barking men
In fifteen forty-mine.
The Piccadilly Line (1906)
West to east, another Thames;
Two streams out in the sticks,
Flowing to a confluence
At Acton (one of six).
Will we moor at Turnham Green?
Will we bloody shite!
On like bright Apollo,
(Unless it’s late at night).
Court the baron, court the earl,
(If you can find your way),
And you will be rewarded:
Behold! The V & A.
Bridge over what? you ask the knights –
They cannot hyde their mirth:
A polynymous tributary
Was sent beneath the earth.
Dr Jekyll and his foe
Preach two different things,
But each is at his liberty,
Where each a soapbox brings.
Jugglers on the cobbled street
Should go west in a flash:
It might not be ‘Leic-est-er Square’
But folks can’t dine-and-dash.
If an insulin-dependant Count
In the Green Park takes your ball,
Don’t ask him for it back again,
Or he’ll have you, Arse ‘n’ all.
On in leaps and bounds we go –
No time to stop and chat! –
We terminate at Cockfosters,
And there’s nowt funny about that.
The Victoria Line (1968)
Stop, take stock. Well there’s a man
Buried botanically.
He will remain now where he was –
Underground eternally.
O! Guns of somewhere, look what you done –
Where was he on his way,
When you took the life out of his frame,
On that there fateful day.
To Five Fields p’raps (to Ebury);
Passport to Pimlico?
Where generally striking
Blackshirts go go go.
To Westminster et-cet-era?
(We’ve put all those to bed) –
To Highbury though, or Islington;
A soft Finsbury bed?
Seven trees all covered in leaves?
The place of welcoming?
Whiche’er it was, whiche’er it was,
We will remember him.
A rocking, upward journey
The colour of the sky.
The Brixton Guns, Vic-to-ria!
Me, Vauxhall and I.
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