The Gun Carriage

(By Gub, London)

Police on motor-cycle mounts
Semaphore with shrill acoustic whistles.
The Aldwych’s Saturday bustle freezes,
As the London’s tourist infantry step back,
Survey Fleet Street’s empty horizon, agog.
A flat autumn city silence.
Empty trees.
A parchment road – folded in residue of orange and green
Littered leaves.
No turning back.
A slow rumbling thunder
Hooves on tarmac, growing harder.
Cupping the tapestried street
Like a thousand arrhythmic shells.
Then the coarse jangle of harness, of bridles,
Leathered cases. Men on the move.
Bright in scarlet and plumes, huge white equestrian
Beasts – a pageant synthesis in sound, smacking the ground – thud, whack and judder.
Magnificent – behind the ranks of pinioned capes, the flooding flow of crimson colour, the gun carriage wheels crack, wood on steel.
Towards the Strand this glorious phalanx of man, beast and monstrous machine rumbles – on their faces, the grim determined jaws of purpose, driving forth with fixed intent.
Tomorrow the salute.
At 11 – the same hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Remembrance.
How could history ever deceive, or dupe memory – with such an unforgettable passing?