We Three Super Kings
We three super kings
We three kings dispersed
Over the kingdom’s surface
Scratching our heads as we
Gaze up at the same ceiling
Our sheets damp with dew
Undulating as molluscs perform
Before our eyes
We behold our return
Back or was it forward?
Ours is not to reason why
There’s a cobweb on the cornice
Cracked plaster edging
Is this our limit? We chime
Your hand my hand his hand
Feeling for some cool sheet
I was a terrible heir
And I regret those statements
I posited that you banked upon
But now I’m left counting the stars
One is so very difficult to keep
Count of: don’t take your eyes off it
You say looking straight ahead
I love the smell and feel of sand
Beneath the camels’ hooves
I passed an old friend
The other day
Why isn’t he here?
He’s busy keeping his hand in
You say smiling
Like a plaster matelot
Will we make it in time
For midnight’s mass I wonder?
But I know the thought
Is just grist
As the mill thunders on
And in the distance the sun
Is rising over the bedframe
Your pyjama jacketed friend
Laughs as we round the bend
We could see coming all along
And a herald arrives
Delivering our final reminder
A parchment scroll
And we pay our respects.
Outcrop
This soon to be the heir to
The skin stretched camping chair
The wanderer above the lakes
Cuts a distinctive figure
Upon a dry-stone wall
Plastic adventurer’s camera in hand
Arise sir win-a-lot
Reborn without cuticles
Magnificent in discreet isolation
Child man elect
Ribbing the yellow gardens
Of dawn’s early sitting
Soot settling on your cheeks
You will wipe that smile
Off the escarpment’s
Skittering fossil face
Skimming one for luck
Out of the corner of your
Daddy’s eye
For you are the daddy
Now and forever
There’s no going back
No looking down
The view churns over leaf
Bite sized reminders
On the back of your hand
You feel held
Back and back we go
Are we there yet?
Horse and Rider
By Elizabeth Frink
Onthe newly cobbled corner
Waiting to cross over
You are heading back to Victoria
Via green Park
Where’s your art work
Asked the social distancing monitor?
Or was it supervisor?
It’s in my pocket.
I’m pleased to tell you
Dangling a mask
Like a question mark
Leave it over there
And one of our art handlers
Will deal with it
You’re wearing your Paul Smith pants
So on the way back
You stop to look at his shop
Same small same old
Cork street meanwhile
Was pretending
To be getting ready
For spring in the winter
Even the beggars wear masks
Surely this is a good sign
This contemplative realm
Except that the inward looks
Betray a different story
You’ve never had it so good
Just admit it you love it
And the trains are so quiet
You feel the sap rising
As the bile slips down
Wait please
This was not how I meant to become enlightened
Where are the fields of wheat?
A man walking down Picadilly
Doth not a Summer Show make
But at least Grayson’s Art club
Will be back next year
Next year so Lockdowners
Can breathe a sigh of relief.
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