Glastonbury

 Glastonbury

 

Once upon a Pandemic Summer struck 

and comes unstuck, manmade's running amok

and masks and cures and climbing figures

but never no summit in sight, all hope forsook,

here’s that very plague upon our houses.

There’s desert in my veins, but hoped for rains

seem nothing now but cancelled planes,

grounded plans and to feel your hand in mine

stands not within the prospect of belief

this Pandemic steals invisible like filthy thief.

Yet, with sweet boy's shout, Glastonbury,

and she swims my tears, pours into my head,

rains down that selfsame salt, it can be fish,

brings bread enough for five thousand,

it can be love; and dreams from this far sunset

here sufficient to rip this mask off my face.

From barren land, I now can see her clear

and together we will rise that peak instead,

walking beyond the living mourning the dead,

to see soaring sun bringing bright moon's

better times echo strains of carefree tunes

locked within her breathing, living stones.

Top Glastonbury, you and me and join hands,

raise us high in smiles and outshine our stars

crossed together, we two survey green lands,

quest plains to distant seas and spot Arabia far.

If I am here only a burden of baggage betrayed,

yours is the face to storm and blast new ages,

sweep all this manmade aside, cry Hosanna,

leave Pandemic and bring forth only Panorama.

Push

 

Push

 

If you cornered me by the pool’s edge,

or pushed me against the hot tub,

I might finger the fungus that grows

on my ankle, my soles, between toes

for don’t we all yellow with age?

There’s comfort in that, or maybe it’s mellow,

I’m sure, the way I saw you look

that you’ll push. Push palms against water

that laps them like a minute tide,

milk kittens soft against my rippled fingers

push water aside but watch it fill the places:

nature abhors waste, cannot abide spaces,

cannot bear a vacuum, makes all haste.

Ask King Canute, if you could, if he was real,

did he not see you smile at rolling waves?

Twinkling at me, pushing years away,

thought maybe we could ebb back time,

have it again, but different, together,

forget futures that happened of childish choice,

that was real love flowing from your voice.

With both of you sat there and time slipping,

I smiled to witness bold fate winking,

it pushed at my heart, but then pushed away,

hearts drawn with hands, clean swept sands

and the tides closed over yesterday.

A Call to Arms

 A Call to Arms

 

Captain, Is the word given?

 

Aye, Master, the word is given,

from the depths of hell are we Angels risen,

we swarm, we soar, we rise above,

unloving and unloved.

 

Do we not sport velvet gloves

of lace so fine and filigree feathered,

mask muscle taut in iron and leather

bent from this abysmal world

whence once we were tethered?

 

And those in London nightly quake,

dreams that shatter them to wake,

of cannon shot and thunder hurled,

see edifice about them crumble,

in visions of slaughterer’s tumbril.

 

Let chains shatter and let anchors haul,

for who here cannot hear the call

of Albion in Death’s choking clutches?

 

Here’s twenty thousand in merrie throng,

who lusty will raise voice in song,

take up arms, unsheathe unbloodied skene,

to plunge hilt-deep, to rend in twain,

and spill the life of lifeless men,

who have driven her bloody to the brink,

to watch in malice as she sinks,

pile coppers high, hear silver clink,

and only of themselves do think,

and gorge themselves and daily drink

a toast to their good fortune.

 

Well, here’s metal that will make you weep,

and mettle enough bring dreamless sleep,

falls eternal dark, falls eternal hell,

as unquiet the blade that makes rest unwell,

where all corpses will fall unbidden:

rot all peaceless amidst the middens.

 

Captain, your order’s heard, your word is given,

let all Angels muster, let all souls be driven,

and with a shout, Trelawney’s living!

 

Aye, Master, set course for yon green-blue pearl,

Let halyards strain, let sheets unfurl,

And those talismans that fakirs charmed,

clutched hopeless in their greasy palms,

will ne'er hope to resist this call to arms!

I’ve seen that face before

I’ve seen that face before

I’ve seen that face before over the years 

drifting, pitching past life’s open doors

six scorned ten and scared,

you’re a million in one, friend, 

a harvest of pinched green scrumped apples

blinking in spectacled resentment

at scythes scraping seventy still plates

full and fallen into black bags of trash,

thick waisted, punch-drunk plastic sacked

hair, buns back-tied so tight the skin stretches

into grins at the last muffin on the shelf.

Sigh. Drag your bitter baggage on wheels,

that overweight spouse in baseball hat,

forty years of watching tat, thinking zero,

all wind beneath my wings and hero

but that pigeon’s shitting in the street

while the cat is digging trenches.

You’ve seen that face before over the years, 

taking also ran selfies in life’s mirror,

winners, winners - chicken dinners,

she’s a million in one, friend.

Arrived but we don't know where we've been,

what we're doing, where we're going,

strictly come cutout caterwauling vicious kittening

in drunk screamed glee, but no one listening,

fashioned from a dress your own doll book

in X Ray specs, pointing plastic telescopes

from expired Christmas crackers

at the other end of nearly dead,

self-portrait in unsqueezed blackheads

and flicked cat tray grit, did somebody say Just Eat?

Mugging it, fumbling at bed sheets,

down the gym, then drink, repeat,

down the gym, then drink, repeat,

until the liver and spleen bottles it.

Glazed in ever-fixed drizzled iced lemon fingers,

flicking phone screens like flicking snot

then wipe, scan for all the lives that matter,

scrape your nail beneath the seat in front,

then to the four winds scatter

but that pigeon’s still shitting in the street

while the dog is lifting its leg.