Beginning in a City, 1948

Stirred by restlessness, pushed by history,
I found myself in the centre of Empire.
Those first few hours, with those packed impressions
I never looked at in all these years.
I knew no room. I knew no Londoner.
I searched without knowing.
I dropped off my grip at the left luggage.
A smart policeman told me a house to try.
In dim-lit streets, war-tired people moved slowly
like dark-coated bears in a snowy region.
I in my Caribbean gear
was a half finished shack in the cold winds.
In November, the town was a frosty field.
I walked fantastic stone streets in a dream.
A man on duty took my ten-shilling note
for a bed for four nights.
Inflated with happiness I followed him.
I was left in a close-walled room,
left with a dying shadeless bulb,
a pillowless bed and a smelly army blanket
all the comfort I had paid for.
Curtainless in morning light, I crawled out of bed
onto wooden legs and stiff-armed body,
with a frosty-board face that I patted
with icy water at the lavatory tap.
Then I came to fellow-inmates in a crowded room.
A rage of combined smells attacked me,
clogging my nostrils
and new charges of other smells merely
increased the stench. I was alone.
I alone was nauseated and choked in deadly air.
I walked without map, without knowledge
from Victoria to Brixton. On Coldharbour Lane
I saw a queue of men some black
and stopped. I stood by one man in the queue.
Wha happenin brodda? Wha happenin here?
Looking at me he said You mus be a jus-come?
You did hear about Labour Exchange? Yes I hear.
Well, you at it! But, you need a place whey you live.
He pointed. Go over dere and get a room.
So, I had begun begun in London.