Thames Walk

/

Giles Goodland

Step onto the dark-worn footpath. The Thames
weeps slowly into London, then sweeps back,
the children peer at water’s appearance
as light lightens the lengthening grass.
N. periodically stops walking.
Cyclists tink their bells and gulls
scatter. S. tells me about golems (saying
‘gollums’), then says he’d been in a race
with millions and won, and I was curious
he saw his self in the sperm, not the more
massive egg.  As did I. We note,
on a half-sunk narrow-boat, the heron’s
holding stare. A sign tells us ‘this
footpath closes at dusk’. Since it’s dusk, we
take it, between tall hedges and heavy-
barked trees. N. already has that way
of taking an arm. The river slops in the tree, light
laces through. The squirrels move
away from us by the length by which for
them the world is eased. 

Here comes the swan: a popemobile
through a crowd of ducks.  

Here people hold pints
and phones, suddenly separately
shouting: a goal had been scored in Russia
but what we notice is the girl in
the mud, her intense regard towards the ebb:
a withdrawn plane and the ribs of what is
under and her mother calling softly
to her to come back, and the name
she calls is Scheherazade.

 

Listen to Giles Goodland reading “Thames Walk” above. You can find other podcasts of authors sharing their work here.

Giles Goodland was born in Taunton and was educated at the University of Wales and the University of California. He took a Doctorate in Philosphy at Oxford and has published several books of poetry, including A Spy in the House of Years (Leviathan, 2001), Capital (Salt, 2006), Dumb Messengers (Salt, 2012), and The Masses (Shearsman, 2018). He works in Oxford as a lexicographer and lives in West London.