Learning

London was always about learning.

Drinking the sweet water of this strange ocean

Gorging on the seaweed of experience

Swilling the plenitude of beauty and of tat.

For London learning is no mental arithmetic

But a deep frying in its rumbling fat.

 

True I sampled the delicacies of its university:

The proletarian sandwiches of Birkbeck -

Extramural nourishment for the masses.

And the nouvelle cuisine glitz of Goldsmiths

(If in the workman's caff variety of

The community work department)

 

But the public libraries were my more normal menu

Making surprising discoveries like

Flesh and Stone or People of Providence

These were the books which helped me

Make the recipe of my urban learning:

An unbohemian mix of academia and poverty

 

But the true pedagogy was immersion

Because somewhere in my gentle soul

I knew that it was this I needed:

The rude instruction of people who act

Before reflection and learned in suffering

Not the lightly toasted wit of a dinner party.