This Is Busking

We met at The Old Swan

Tuesday nights, open stage

music acoustic

he, street-smart from Paris

thin as wire, Dylan-haired

fresh from Sorbonne

student unrest - a Maoist

I was in London to sing ballads

in folk-clubs and pubs

he'd come to sing

at the Troubadour - 'Heart of Gold'

short of money

needing a copy of Time Out

he took me across the road

to Nottinghill Gate tube station

he said 'put your case down

in front of you and sing'

I sang 'Streets of London'

to the passing crowd

coins started flowing into my case

he retrieved 70p

for a precious copy of Time Out

and said

'keep singing, this is busking'

Pamela Sidney 2003

The Seedling Planters

The boy and I, both down and out

unlikely mates, found ourselves working

for the same boss

planting spring seedlings in window-boxes

of banks, pubs and posh apartments

together we shared the lucky day

planting flowers a garden border

we dug up eighty pounds in silver coins

buried right outside a bank's front doors.

assistant gardeners

me a busker in the Underground

and he so young, so first-job poor

both needing money so desperately

he needed a bicycle to get around

and me, the money a plane ticket home

we had miraculously found

a substantial stash of cash

only to be arrogantly brushed aside

by our bragging

Rolls Royce driving Cockney-boss

who didn't intend this nice little cache

to be 'finders keepers' for his rather sweet

odd-couple spring-flower seedling planters

our Cockney-boss ingratiated himself

to the security guard for the bank

whispering together in the foyer

he handed the stolen money over

still in it's plastic bags

branded London Transport

to his swaggering gun-in-the-holster mate

no doubt they divided the hidden heist

between them later, after the boy and I

had knocked off for the day

I resigned that night

in absolute white-hot-fury

at my bosses lack of empathy

I said to head office (eating my anger)

“a personality conflict” with the boss

I couldn't believe his insensitivity

to our poverty

and the boy - just out of school -

who badly needed a bike

and me

the money for a plane ticket home

all thought of my future survival

my poverty, vanished in righteous anger

completely obliterated my need for this job

as a spring-flower seedling planter.

Pamela Sidney 29.8.99

Guitar Riff

It only takes a certain guitar riff

a certain descending melody

with an off beat disguised

to bring you back

the smokey pub

filled with transient gypsies

holding glasses of ale

longing for something

to fill their emptiness

it only takes a certain guitar riff

to bring back the darkened empty squat

cigarette tips glowing like a legion of stars

sound coming out of the gloom

melodies thrown into the night

it only takes a certain guitar riff

to bring back the day

we woke to deep snow

covering the garden

up to the front doorstep

then off to busking

in the heart of London

gloves, scarves, hats, cold mist

curling from our mouths

it only takes a certain guitar riff

to bring back the red buses

circling Hampstead Garden suburb

the old Golder's Green Jewish Cemetery

the neighbour

who thought we were hippies

bound to make trouble

just music 'til 3am

and a brand new world

to explore each morning

Pamela Sidney 12.2.05

In Search of My Ancestors


The dark afternoons close in
winter is come, no sun, just grey skies
and a feeling of day's end at 3pm.
This drawing in, this melancholic sadness
not yet understood

could it be winter's cadenza
to a thousand summers gone before ?
Or a closing down for long cold months
salted footpath, iced over waterway
snow, sleet and hail ?

could it be the heavy coats, hats and scarves
which must be donned day after day?
Or maybe this little island
must sleep the winter through
cradled, surrounded by slate-grey stormy seas,
cold wind breasting cliff and moor
snow cresting highland and valley
the lonely toll of church bell
deep in winter solstice solitude

hedgerows uniform and true
snake with little lanes into mysterious villages
where frail fingers part lace curtains
a longing to see something out of the ordinary
beyond the village, out through larger windows
to a world - exotic unknown

and yet, wrinkled eyes
behind the curtains fear anything different
anything foreign, anything that confronts
learned Victorian morals
fear any change of routine
for the tea must be served at four
no matter what earthly catastrophe
may descend

the war is remembered here as yesterday
old men puff their pipes and reminisce
for distance of time allows them now
some comfort of romanticism

all over the island
country fires blaze in iron grates
lights glow yellow

from stained glass window
smoke curls blending to grey
indiscernible against leaden sky

office workers stack back to back
in underground trains

fogged windows make snug capsules

of warm carriages
men nod to sleep, newspaper part read
motherly crones knit, sharp eye perusing
the tenants of this moving living room
and through the standing bodies
who cling to leather straps
push pimply adolescent punks
clinking of chains, black-leather sharp
against business suit and tie
spiked hair rebellious confronting
the short-trimmed civil-servant heads

crowds mill and swarm into Victoria Station
moving streams changing trains
for travel to distant parts of the island
comfortable matrons head south for Brighton
their shopping done exhausted they sit
eyes closed to sleep the journey through
back-packers queue for the night train
to meet the channel ferry, bearded
dishevelled, sleep-deprived
wandering hippy-gypsies
dreaming of the sun on Crete
spiced olives from Spain or Italy
of temples on the island of Cyprus
or the free-park in Amsterdam
or black-cabaret in Berlin
their young heads full
of Turkey or Greece
or sweet hashish fantasy
or climbing rocky gorges
or listening to stories the locals tell
or merely eating, warm in afternoon-cafes`.

Anglo-island memories
the people carry
of mediaeval plague
of kings and queens and druid rites
of ancient blood-lines and pagan times
misted in dark sacred forests
circles of granite stone
deep faerie chalice wells
hosted, kept alive in legend and folk-lore

love songs sung by the troubadour
live on in every sweet-voiced busker
in the heart of every tramp
and every nomad
in every lonely wayfarer
in every discontented traveller
desiring the freedom of wide sky
open road, bountiful fruit orchard

or the memories may be dogged
of hardship and poverty
of black charred cottage
of damp tuberculous coal-mine
of belching cotton mill
pounding iron-foundry
of wasting spirit
disintegrating ghost-town
overgrown factory
despair for the future
the jobless thousands
the poverty thrust down south
to London's cardboard cities
under bridges, demolition sites
soup kitchens, railway station benches
the tramps younger this year than last

the tulips in St James' Park
are free to look upon
the birds have flown to warmer parts
children skate on iced-over water
ignoring warning signs, young lovers walk
arms encircled clinging, as if this
their last day must be spent in love

Rolls Royces' disgorge the wealthy
at Mayfair Hotels where there is no winter
French and German tourists line-up
in Charing Cross Road for tickets
to the latest fad musical

at Leicester Square
actors Indian-file at the stage-door
waiting to audition, music librettos
clutched in their hands, pre-occupied
re-living dance routines in their head
memorizing shaky song-lyrics
psyching themselves
into some vibrant image
for the director listening out there
in the dark below the stage
where the audience usually is
but the theatre is empty cavernous
it's acoustics fabulous, it is so easy
up there on stage, to think one is a star
and will get a part in the play this day

out on the street the artist draws
soft pastel Rembrandt
to disappear in the first rain
a one-man-band does the theatre queue
his accomplice accosts cloth cap extended
money, always money

taxi-drivers swear and curse
at tourists who do not tip enough
the London traffic crawls
a bobby gives directions from an A to Z
young people diso-clothed step out to dance
into the morning, and the Hard Rock Cafe`
churns out mock American milk-shakes
for credulous teenagers

the soap-boxes in Hyde Park are occupied
by political agitators, very bad philosophers
occasional anarchists, and punk poets
who dream of oblivion -
the coming chaos of Capitalism

the crowds hover tentatively
reluctant to listen too deeply
for one might begin to believe
the message spelled out
for the average person
anything but rock the boat
so the speakers orate
to a cynical audience
who give only half an ear
before moving on
to have a 'nice cup of tea'

Pamela Sidney 1992

Hyde Park Spruiker

He could have been a young Omar Shariff

teeth gleaming, lips pouting

finely chiseled brown face

gold glints on wrists and fingers

tailored suit, shirt snow white

wearing soft Gucci shoes

he's confident in his 'work clothes'

the bonus earned each Sunday

taking the rostrum at Speakers' Corner

French, English, Arabic at his command

he stands above the crowd

passionately unfolding the tragedy

of the Palestinian people

in camps fifty years -

waiting for their State of Palestine

time off from busking at a loose end

standing in the crowd mesmerized

listening to an adept immersed in his subject

when a heckler interjects

shouts insults and racist slurs

the spruiker dealt swiftly with the 'plant'

he'd done this before – words his world

eloquent under harassment - the heckler

dissolved back into the crowd

meeting him later, instinct told me

he needs to remain a mystery

not too many prying questions

invited back to his Chelsea flat

for coffee and conversation

he ushered me in through the door

checked efficiently behind curtains

under beds, inside cupboards

'in this business' he said

'You always check first – for bombs'

Pamela Sidney 2003