created by Lavinia Singer

We delve into folklore and legend as Lavinia explores the stories that have built the history of a city.

A man swings from a bridge.

Water sings under paving stones.

Night falls, and the spirits bless the archways.

Shot her third husband: bullets in the wall.

Listen to the whispers of the house-cracks.

And the soft bell rings in the key of E.

For good health, we lodged in the vales –

gloves rinsed in rosewater,

patchworks of handkerchiefs and laundry lines.

Downtown, it’s ghouls on the gateposts,

days of pea-soup fog and death-ridden fleas.

Uproar is the only music.

Fingernails collect in a churchyard.

Rat-tails splayed like shoelaces.

Who lies beneath the floorboards?

Pigeons, our living grotesques,

at times can rainbow like cathedrals.

A lost river flows, and the people miss it.

Lavinia Singer is a London based poet.

Follow: @lcosinger