Read Poetry: Toby Sycamore, by Ben Westwood

Toby Sycamore
Again I’m in London, and I’m back on the run,
And because I was grassed up before,
I need to stay undetected, so that nobody finds me,
I’m going to have to try more.

No-one can know that my real is Ben, and that I’ve ran away
from care,
Folk will be asking for me around Whitechapel, so it’s best
they think I’ve not been there.
So I speak a fake accent, a pretend East End cockney, from
the moment I wake up, until night.

For the whole next four months, with everyone that I meet,
just so I know that I’m alright.
Or else they might find me, when Old Bill ask questions,
someone might say, “I know him”.

So if everyone thinks that I’m from round here,
The chances I’m caught are quite slim.
One day plain-clothes police pulled me outside Victoria station,
asking people outside…