Unforgiven

 

Unforgiven

 

 

You say she wasn’t finished with us yet?

Well, some things I’m careless about now,

kneel at your peril, for I’m quite likely

to take bass guitar, plant it firmly

neck first in funereal ground, stand back,

light the touchpaper and plangent strum,

cross my heart before the big boss drum,

march in a slow life of disposable outcome.

 

Be thankful for what? Oh, I touch pictures

sure, can hear that iron door creaking,

sky shot through with distant streaking sunrise,

see Michael by instruments of bloody torture

framed, as plague ship comes leeward into shore.

 

Ten-year dire storm warnings unheeded?

Look - here’s incoming from the chancellery:

bombshells of the empty-headed blonde kind,

killed by friendly fire to make a killing,

some of us less than willing to take sticks

and bang the hollow saucepans of war for pricks.

 

Hobble up and down my back garden?

A hundred foolish times yes, aching backed,

zimmer frame snagged in crazy paving cracks,

tangled up in heavy matted thatched quackgrass,

stumbling over spoils of tinned foodbank;

shoot the fucking mockingbird, pass me a medal,

I’ll take that over drowned pineapple chunks

twisting in sugar coated tooth-rot heavy syrup,

or rotting alphabet pasta albatross shaped soup.

Still best shut it, be grateful for boxed puke,

because a hundred miles of queued lorry pray

daily in Dover for a speedy getaway.

 

Set up voting booths in crematoria, why not?

A fine parlour for our just desserts, I’d say,

where X marks the spot and there’s your lot,

helped over finish line with a shove in the back.

Anybody left can sort through scant ashes

for any sage wisdom that’s fit to print,

like the benefits of being fucking skint,

denounce mass gatherings of young release,

pay due taxes to your robber and thief

while setting up plague beacons off The Needles.

Choke on crushed emeralds while we burn thatch,

we’ve breakfasted on hot breath long enough,

empty stomachs full of empty words is the stuff,

prattling gameshow remedies of call my bluff.

 

You laugh; say it’s all too late, now?

Yes, but they canst not say we did it,

can they? Well, now.

With what meagre pleasures in hell remain,

most are too old or too young, they care less,

while the rest of us have long since fled.

But we can at altar mourn, in death of sense

repent, never strong enough to prevent,

that in hope of love became complacent.

She comes, I feel her mind growing in mine,

maybe it is me, double fantasy in basslines

rising, but all in good time,

couplets that rhyme,

forgiveness perhaps, played plangent in crime,

so in kneeling receive blessed communion wine.