WORMWOOD
Wormwood isn’t here
The sign said, rather waspishly.
It wasn’t the Wormwood I remembered;
Scrubs Lane on a wet Sunday
The outback in West London
No buses, no cars, no people
Just limp grass, acres of the stuff
And, oh yes, the finest redbrick edifice
Victoria’s henchmen could construct.
No rotting bodies in here, my friend.
Not Newgate, not by a long shot
Though debts must still be paid
And some may still get laid
Lord Alfred Douglas lay here,
As did Charles Bronson,
Keith Richards, Leslie Grantham.
And George Blake
Scurrying along in his traitor’s gait
Till the day he pole-vaulted to freedom
More or less
Before waving goodbye
To his English life,
His liberty and his wife
And all those Wormwood scrubbers
My Writing Life 
You’ve set me thinking with this one Tom, and looking at maps and photos online too: Wormwood Scrubs is not in Scrub Lane, and the picture is of Leicester Prison! But the ex-cons are real enough. And the memories of that limp grass too I guess. An air of mystery and an atmosphere of nostalgia! Down Scrubs Lane sounds like “down memory lane” in these lines!
LikeLike
You are quite right John. But if you walk down Scrubs Lane – now A219 – you eventually come to Wormwood Scrubs Park, and the prison is on the other side of that. I lived in that area of London for a long time and often took that walk. And I have been in there, as a performer! Though I do recall shaking the hands of the Kray twins in there in the dim and distant past. But that’s another story!
As for the picture, I think it was a slip of the finger. It’s definitely not WS!
ordered your book bytw.
LikeLike
You’ve been in there as a performer! My word, that must have been a challenge. I’m mightily impressed. And I’ve been back to the map and see what you mean. I like the poem too. (And thanks so much for ordering The Human Hive).
LikeLike