Albion Tribute To Allen Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra Poem by Kathy Greethurst

Look at the sunflower, I said.
There was the shadow of a crown
in silhouette against the dazzling sun.

Enchanted, I rushed up.
It was my first sunflower -
memories of Van Gogh, Ginsberg and Blake -
visions of my old life and the hell of London,
squatters in cardboard boxes, broken bottles,
used needles, guns and knives, sirens,
prostitutes, drunks, and skunks,
boarding houses, chips in newspaper,
broken bikes, rusty trikes, neon lights,
barbed wire fences, youths smoking spliffs,
and more rotters and plotters than rats,
ever-present - and the golden sunflower
poised in the sunlight and oblivious
to the smog of Didcot's cooling towers.

Perfect sunflower! When did you decide
you were a power station?