A London State of Mind: Poem

Image by Loco Steve via Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

This poem explores London as a city layered with memory. One can feel life, history, and culture while walking down its streets - from whispered crimes, to the toll of St Paul’s bells, which once rang out as a symbol of endurance during the Blitz. London’s nostalgia lies in how its past resurfaces into the present, through sound, light, and shifting faces - making the city not only a place, but a fragmented, eternal state of mind.

London London London Town,

Spins my world, turns it upside down;

She’s bright, enigmatic, a flawless star,

At this time not a single scar.

Now rain beats down on Waterloo,

A crack in the sky forms to let light through.

The crowd hisses, constricts like an angry snake

While the bells of St Paul’s leave joy in their wake.

Beneath each stone, the city keeps its lore,

Footsteps echo from those who walked here before.

The past and present blur along these streets,

Where memories linger and history repeats.

Borough Market’s stalls entice with sugared air,

But here whispered secrets of old crimes are everywhere.

At night, neon lights clash against the twilight sky—

This city never sleeps,

And lost dreams are traded as trains fly by.

Look closer at the sky: it shimmers with ghosts of the past,

A moment of glory, a shadow, a void — they all last.

London remembers through her bells, her chime,

An eternal city, outside of time.

Faces shift from day to night,

Masks exchanged beneath the light.

In her chaos, the then and now bind—

This is London: a fragmented state of mind.

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Edited by Alyssa Erulin