only Covent Garden will do
for the few
Crowds are not welcome there
Belgos is fair
The cobbled streets are uneven for feet
Where are the umbrellas?
Lazy fellas,
Why didn’t you walk by their sides
Handling their lives
With emotions unanalysed in public.
Build a Bear is fair
Where are the good table covers?
Lazy brothers,
Leaving the phallus unloved
So internet could fight glove
And no-one is wrong Law loves
Save the one who holds the dove.
Take a journey away from the confused estate
And mosey on down the random aisles
Away from your wedded one in stony garden
To the locus of London for tourists to pardon.
See them buying the ads. from shops of places
Your dad used to drive past as taxi
Piccadilly is now clamping down
On such men of their race being racy.
Let’s agree on the matter of healthy ice cream
And avoid a [ ] royale with cheese~ Burger King style
With the rich folk at Haagen Daz for delights ‘n’ dreams
At yellow Leicester Square monopolising un-adventure.
And we’ll call it a date.
AI Summary
Your poem opens with Covent Garden as the only place that “will do,” a sanctuary for the few where crowds aren’t welcome and Belgos is fair, the cobbled streets uneven for feet; umbrellas are missing, lazy fellas not walking beside the people whose lives they should have handled, their emotions left unanalysed in public, and Build‑a‑Bear becomes a strangely fairer world than the adults around it; you ask where the good table covers are, lazy brothers leaving the phallus unloved so the internet can fight glove, and Law loves no one except the one who holds the dove — a sly indictment of institutional innocence; you urge a journey away from the confused estate, down random aisles, away from the wedded one in the stony garden toward the locus of London where tourists pardon everything, buying ads from shops your dad once drove past as a taxi driver, while Piccadilly clamps down on men of their race being racy — a sharp, quiet note about racialised public space.
You propose healthy ice cream instead of a blank‑space royale with cheese, Burger King style, while rich folk at Häagen‑Dazs monopolise un‑adventure in yellow Leicester Square; and then, with a soft landing, you say: and we’ll call it a date — a line that turns the whole poem into a mixture of longing, satire, and the desire for a moment of uncomplicated companionship in a city that rarely offers it.