Messing With The Old Kent Road. Poem by June Webster

It's strange how you thought you could remove
the World Turned Upside Down, the Old Gin Palace,
and the Green Man, replace them with pizza take-outs,
restaurants of dubious cuisine, think we wouldn't notice.
That in our aged minds we would've forgotten boozy
nights with friends, jiving till the early hours

The Frog and Nightgown, now a stolid block of flats,
has lost its love of the rhythmic bass which throbbed
into the souls of enthusiasts of bop and pop.
Were you ashamed their history would taint you,
remind people you once drank a pint or more
with cronies deleted from contacts?

Did you turn the Dun Cow into a surgery
for the salvation of your debilitated liver?
You cannot wipe away memories, you've overlooked
the novels and biographies haunting book shops
with mentions of these establishments? Famous authors
who visited, maybe nights you were there sipping your tipple?

Gone are the south London rogues
trying to make a fast buck, chips wrapped in newspaper.
Absent is atmosphere, anticipation of the evenings' outcome
Do you ever you drive along this highway to the south,
recall the past, smile or feel sad.Most of all don't you regret
swopping the seedy for the even more seedy?