Singing Again

Clang, clang, clang on the anvil
in the smithy by the dark North Sea.
The school choir belted out
the words, innocent voices
filling Hackney town hall
just across from the Empire
with its music hall turns,
audiences clapping, coughing
through a haze of burning rollups.

Who was Sylvia? And who cared
about blacksmiths or the North Sea,
newly filled with twisted metal,
the torpedoed dead.
We sang as best we could
while parents glowed with pride
as the classics master smiled,
waved his baton in the air,
briefly forgot the River Kwai
and thought about Cicero.