St. George's Tower

I wrote the following poems in October 2012 as Vauxhall Tower (also known as St. George's Tower) rose to its current height of 50 storeys making it Britain's tallest residential building. I took the photos (below) on the day of the fatal accident Wednesday January 16 a few hours after a helicopter struck a crane on the tower, killing the pilot and a pedestrian.
The Vauxhall Society, for whom the poems were originally written, has safety concerns about this tower and similar ones planned for Vauxhall.

St. George's Tower

St George's Tower

It taunts the day and haunts the night
This tyrannising tube of height
It shouts all lower structures down
Enslaves the Eye for miles around

It straddles Vauxhall’s riverside
A beast midstream but not high tide
It dominates, obliterates
Stifles minds and suffocates

Against the seagulls’ mournful cries
Insidious and climbing high
St George’s Tower alters lives
Puncturing Vauxhall’s skies

Its vast concentric core is first
As each new level upwards thrusts
Emptiness is pierced by man
A crane assists this massive plan

Near London’s first and buried bridge
This tower looks down on MI6
Imposes on the ancient shore
A monstrous height of 50 floors

Rupturing all serenity
Where lower roofs once reigned supreme
No low profile on the Thames
At this soft bend where nature blends
 

where wildfowl and the salty flows
Of air and currents cleanse the soul
St George’s Tower standing tall
Ending what was old Vauxhall

Written October 2012

By Sally Gethin



 

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Elegy to old Vauxhall

It is dying, slowly sadly
As a beast that’s euthanased
This tidal stretch of river
Is going to its grave

Ebbing and subsiding
Its heart imploding quick
As a creature ceasing fighting
Submitting to the rich

The slow arc of a seagull
The cormorants that dive
The heron paused in feeding
Nature stalled, subsides

It is ebbing, it is slowing
All the freedom in its sights
the clouds are dark cascading
On Vauxhall’s lonely plight

The low unpressured skyline
That lets the eye roam free
The easy sweep of London
As it bends towards the sea

It is dying and declining
As developers clog its heart
Wiping Vauxhall’s history
In a strangled fake false art

It is dying it is sighing
As the first tall building climbs
Blanking out the soft twilight
With brittle glaring lights

The loneliness of Vauxhall
Its solitary hues
This quiet stretch of river
The colour and its mood

Is dying and capsizing
No saviour at its gate
No-one to defend it
As the land is churned in spades

A crass manhattan sprints to life
Colossal choking height
A tyranny to hug the sky
Bestriding day and night

This last wide stretch of river
With Vauxhall at its crux
Surrenders all its quiet hope
As construction starts to thrust

The first to dominate the view
Excrescence in steel form
A protuberance above the Thames
Shows the finger in Vauxhall

And more to come, upon the shore
Like sharpened knives upturned
Twin towers to assault the mind
Their fingers at our throat

It is dying it is ebbing
Like a saddened slumbering beast
Euthanased and crushed beneath
Vauxhall’s tidal soul

Sally Gethin, October 2012